The Beguiled (Coppola, 2017): Mini-Film Review

The film that captures the ethos of the United States right now more than any film in 2017 is, to me, The Beguiled. Sophia Coppola's film presents an injured AWOL Union soldier during the Civil War who finds himself in an all-women's seminary in the south. When grateful, he is full of praise towards the women and girls there; when distressed, he is as ugly as he was magnanimous.

Sophia Coppola is a master of making movies that have absolutely nothing at their core, which makes them nearly impossible to duplicate or replicate. Although Lost in Translation is an exception, because a certain atmosphere imbues the entire film, I love Coppola's movies for this reason. The Beguiled begins in this "nothing at the center" fashion, then stuff goes awry in a though-provoking way--at first, it reminded me of The Hateful Eight but that comparison doesn't really work. Here, violence is always lurking in the background.