Barring the delightful festive treat known as A Very Murray Christmas, it’s going on four years since Sofia Coppola’s last creative effort, The Bling Ring, dazzled moviegoers on the big screen. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the writer-director hasn’t been keeping busy.
In between work on documentaries like The Family Whistle, Coppola has been quietly pulling together a modern remake of The Beguiled, a new, star-studded interpretation on the novel A Painted Devil by Thomas P. Cullinan. Indeed, Cullinan’s period yarn has graced the screen before; back in 1971, director Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page tackled the family drama, which largely takes place in rural Mississippi during the height of the American Civil War.
Sofia Coppola’s version of The Beguiled will dance to the same tune, only this time it is The Lobster‘s Colin Farrell on board to play wounded Union soldier, John McBurney. Nursed back to health while housed up in a Confederate girls’ boarding school, Farrell’s dashing marksman begins to woo the women of Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary, much to the chagrin of Nicole Kidman’s Martha Farnsworth. Such indulgences cause a rift within the boarding school, but it doesn’t take long before the film’s core cast turn their vengeful gaze toward Farrell’s mischievous soldier.
Here’s the synopsis:
“While imprisoned in a Confederate girls’ boarding school, an injured Union soldier cons his way into each of the lonely women’s hearts, causing them to turn on each other, and eventually, on him.”
The Beguiled debuts across both U.S. and UK theaters on June 23rd. Elle Fanning (The Neon Demon), Kirsten Dunst, and The Nice Guys breakout Angourie Rice also star.
