The Beguiled
Director: Sofia Coppola
Screenwriter: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Colin Farrell
Distributor: Focus Features
Rated R | 94 Minutes
Release Date: June 23, 2017

Sofia Coppola‘s first short film, 1998’s Lick the Star, follows a clique of teenage girls led by Chloe, who is obsessed with V.C. Andrews’ novel, Flowers in the Attic. Chloe orchestrates a plan with her girl gang to “weaken” the boys they don’t like at their school by poisoning their lunches with arsenic. The 14-minute black and white 16mm short film shows early signs of Coppola’s fascination with the themes of isolation and identity, sexual awakening, and the trauma of adolescence.

Since then, Coppola has explored these ideas in the 18th, 20th, and 21st centuries with Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Somewhere, and The Bling Ring. Now, the writer-director journeys to the 19th century with The Beguiled, a remake of the 1971 film of the same name, based on the 1966 Southern Gothic novel, A Painted Devil, by Thomas P. Cullinan.