Take a break from this summer’s blockbusters with a refreshing Gothic thriller from Sofia Coppola starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Colin Farrell. The Beguiled is sure to be a beautifully disturbing change of pace.
Coppola’s last full feature was 2013’s The Bling Ring, not counting her 2015 Netflix Christmas special A Very Murray Christmas, but she’s back with a period piece with this, her next movie The Beguiled. This time adapting Thomas Cullinan’s novel, which had originally been adapted to screens one time before starring Clint Eastwood, and directed by Dirty Harry‘s Don Siegel back in 1971. It’s a personal fave of Eastwood’s own films and still packs a wallop to this day.
Check out the trailer for Sofia Coppola’s remake of The Beguiled:
Based on the 1966 Thomas Cullinan novel, The Beguiled stars Nicole Kidman as the headmistress of the stately Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies. Kirsten Dunst plays Edwina, a teacher, and Elle Fanning, a teenage student named Alicia. The school, in some disrepair, has remained largely untouched by the war, but the girls’ seclusion is interrupted by the discovery of a wounded soldier from the Union Army (Colin Farrell). His arrival kicks off a twisty tale of seduction and jealousy.
Behind the camera is The Grandmaster cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd, bringing in naturalistic lighting and playing with shadows like no body’s business. The Beguiled is sure to be stark, hauntingly beautiful and maybe just a little bit psychologically scarring. If they keep the ending you’re sure to understand the Farrell’s words at the end of the trailer.
In addition to the trailer’s release, there were also a slew of official photos posted just days before the teaser hit online. You can check out a few of them below:
Coppola stalked a little about her reasoning behind tackling the film, and updating it for not only her sensibilities but modern ones as well:
“I haven’t really done a genre film. It was fun to figure out how to approach that but still [keep the film] in my style, and to have this kind of beautiful, dreamy world that I like — but with a plot!…The main crux of the story is about the dynamics between a group of women all stuck together, and then also the power shifts between men and women. So for me, it’s very universal, but it’s in this exotic setting of the Southern gentility.”
The Beguiled will hit theaters on June 23, 2017
Images: Focus Features, EW
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