Benedetta Review

“Showgirls, but in a convent.” That’s how Benedetta has been sold, which really only scratches the surface of this supremely sexy, silly, strangely entertaining film from ever-indelicate satirist Paul Verhoeven. Adapted from Judith C. Brown’s book, Immodest Acts: The Life Of A Lesbian Nun In Renaissance Italy, it has the weight of history behind it, as if to deflect against accusations of implausibility. Yes, there really were horny, mystic nuns in a 17th-century abbey, in what is supposedly the earliest written record of a lesbian relationship in the modern Western world.

So you might reasonably think it follows the ‘forbidden historical romance’ blueprint. Certainly, the film explores female desire in a world that denies it, helped by humane and considered performances from Virginie Efira as the title character and newcomer Daphne Patakia as her lover, with the always-dependable Charlotte Rampling eyeing them suspiciously as the sceptical, scowling Abbess.

But Verhoeven is too interesting — and too irreverent — a filmmaker to simply go down one well-trodden path. He seems fascinated by how this story intersects with sexual expression and freedom, power dynamics and gender, and the clashing of reason and faith.

It is a reckoning of religion as much as anything, and ever the provocateur, Verhoeven seems to delight in the sacrilegious. This is a film in which (within the first five minutes) the blessed Virgin Mary takes the form of a small bird who poos into someone’s eye; Jesus Christ himself appears as a horseback-riding, sword-wielding hunk; and a wooden idol of the Virgin is fashioned into a makeshift dildo.

Much of this is quite straightforwardly funny, and it’s hard to imagine some of the dialogue — co-written by Verhoeven and David Birke — hasn’t been played for laughs. (As one church elder cries, “Lust? Between women? Impossible!”) Earnest and often emotional performances from the cast keep things the right side of out-and-out comedy, but it is a satire in the most forthright terms.

While Verhoeven’s last film, the Paris-set, Isabelle Huppert-starring Elle, was understated and arthouse-y, Benedetta finds the director closer to his Basic Instinct-era erotica comfort zone. The filmmaking here is blunt, almost tacky. Anne Dudley’s score is enjoyably sweeping, though it verges on cheesy, while a CGI sky in the final act, portending divine judgement, is laughably cheap. It’s an entirely European production — a Dutch director, working in the French language on a film set in Italy — but to its marrow, this is B-movie exploitation Hollywood.

Inevitably, that means not every viewer will be singing from the same hymn sheet. Some are bound to be offended; others will just find it juvenile or absurd. But true disciples will appreciate the outlandish craft and courage of Verhoeven’s best film in years: a feminist allegory about a woman establishing power in a patriarchal system — through faith, love and dildos.