Directed by Sofia Coppola (2017)
by Jaime Davis, The Fixer

When I was in high school in the late 90's, I had subscriptions to about 10 different magazines: Vogue, Seventeen, W, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Bazaar, YM, Elle, etc. A lot of the "women's interest" rag mags I peeped back then were Mad About the Girl, the Girl in question being none other than Sofia Coppola. Featured in profile after inane profile or in party pics, Sofia appeared to embody all the 90's cool I could never quite muster: minimalist, skinny chic, effortless in every fucking way. "Oh! Here's Sofia and her fashion-y, model-y friends in the Village. And HERE she is hanging with rock stars (Kim Gordon!). OMG she has a clothing line called Milk Fed that I could never ever afford!" (Also I think she dated Keanu Reeves back in the day which is like super heckin cool). For a young girl who, at that time, operated with a level of self-esteem hovering around 37%, Coppola embodied a sort of love-hate escapism; I dreamed of living a life half as cool as hers, being half as cool as she was, while fully realizing the PR machine behind her was just a bunch of bullshit dressed up in cool trainers, baby tee, and stretchy black skirt. When the news about Coppola moved away from scene girl to her impending directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, I became fully immersed in all things Coppola. At the time I fancied becoming a filmmaker myself, so naturally now I wanted to BE HER. Ugh.

Back then, news moved slowlyyyy. Well, everything moved slowly, or so it seemed. Imagine a world without internets and compooter phones and hi-larious memes and blog after silly blog giving us updates on all the shit we may or may not be interested in. We didn't have Variety online 24/7 to bring us all the entertainment industry news on a constant basis (jaysus, how did I exist before it?). Not one single Tumblr, man! No YouTube or Apple Trailers to advance check out all the films you would, or would not be seeing. And so I waited for The Virgin Suicides. And waited. And waitedddddd. And waaaaaiiitteeeedddd. I kept reading about it, but it was delayed, delayed, delayed. And while I waited, I had this feeling about her first film. An intuition that it was going to be lovely. Have you ever heard about a movie, before seeing any of the marketing materials, and just knew, you felt it 386% in your itty bitty bones that you were gonna love it? That's how I felt about The Virgin Suicides. And I was right. It's not a film I can watch over and over, but it got the tone of the book right. And it looked so amazingly dreamy and lovely. Here was a film, i.e. a director, who understood what it was like to be a teenage girl of a particular kind (read: white), of a particular background (read: fortunate), languishing into obscurity just like everyone else but hoping, praying you might be different (but knowing that godammit, you're not). I was immediately drawn to Coppola's particular brand of romantic, basic feminism. Not proud to admit it, but I couldn't help it.

After some time, Coppola followed up with Lost in Translation, a film that is squarely in my Top 5 of All-Time (which is kinda ridiculous - like how could I ever pick just five films of all-time? From ALL THE FILMS EVER MADE?). My Top 5 of All-Time changes, well, with time. And Lost in Translation has been lodged there for a few years now. I catch a new feeling from it every time I watch, depending on whatever life shit has recently gone down. When I first saw it, I was at the point in my life, young and carefree and single, where I wanted Charlotte to just be happy with her cutie cute hubs, and just get over it already. Because he's like cool and stuff! And because that's what you do when you're married (right?)! And like, ugh what is she doing with Bob Harris anyway? I mean, their "relationship" or whatever is going nowhere! And he's old af. Then I grew up a bit, got married myself, got divorced. And I felt for Charlotte in so many different ways (read: felt for Sofia in so many different ways). And watching it now, with everything I've gone through in my silly, not-important romantic lyfe, I know that there are so many different types of love relationships - they don't all end up as full-blown couplings with the house and the dog and the coffee in the morning. No matter how much we would like them to be, you know? And I think the relationship between Bob and Charlotte, though unexplained and open-ended, is one of the most lovely, most realistic to be featured onscreen, ever. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but again, Sofia spoke to me.

Marie Antoinette is another film of Coppola's I adore, even though she alienated a few with this one. When I heard she was making this film with Kirsten Dunst as its star, I immediately bought the book the script was based on and eagerly awaited its release. By this time, the internetz was more of like, a regular thing, and when the trailer hit I remember posting that shit to my Myspace with the quicks. And when I saw the film for the first time I felt Coppola nailed Marie Antoinette's isolation, her immense anxiety over life at court, her rise and fall, and the sheer insanity of how we build up women of power or prestige or celebrity just so we can pull the rug out from them and watch them tumble.

By this point I felt Coppola could do no wrong. She understood my particular brand of feminism...or rather, my wannabe feminism. I'm not super proud about it, but there it is. I certainly don't embody her world and never will, but this outsider sure wanted to pretend. But...why? That's the troubling part. I wish I had an answer.

By the time Somewhere was released, I felt ambivalent because, while Elle Fanning's character is a delight, the story revolves more around Stephen Dorff's Johnny Marco - an A list actor so far gone to the trappings of Hollywood life, he can't quite see the breadcrumb trail out. I liked it, but I didn't see the point. Same with The Bling Ring - I was interested in the story, but again, didn't get why this was important in the grander scheme, except that it's a {scary} meditation on American fascination with celebrity. Oh, and a true story, sure. But I felt Sofia was a little off. Somewhere between Somewhere and The Bling Ring we lost her moody feminine sensibilities a bit.

Which brings us to her latest release, The Beguiled. Prior to Coppola's work on this film, it was announced she was directing a live action version of The Little Mermaid (but then backed out of, thankfully). She wanted to adapt the much darker fairy tale for the screen, not do a live action Disney adaptation. Sure, sure...cool cool cool. But...what? Really? So The Beguiled...also begs the question: what the what? Is you really Sofia Coppola? Now I get that people change and grow, and as artists may want to explore new territory. Noted. (Should someone tell that to Wes Anderson?) But remaking a little remembered 70's psychodrama starring Clint Eastwood, based on an even less remembered novel (Thomas P. Cullinan's 1966 A Painted Devil)? You got me scratching my head girl, but I'm game. Let's give it a go! And I did. And I am...still scratching my head.

The Beguiled opens on Virginia, 1864, and we are three years into the Civil War. Innocent Amy (Oona Laurence) stumbles across Corporal John McBurney, a severely injured Union soldier (a seemingly ageless Colin Farrell - how old is you, boo?). Despite him being the enemy and all, she brings him back to her home at Miss Martha Farnsworth's Seminary for Young Ladies, because it's "the Christian thing to do." Nicole Kidman, HBIC Miss Martha herself, is wary at first, as she should be. But she bends to Amy's thoughtfulness and kindness, allowing the blue belly a place to rest and restore...until he is better, that is, and they can hand him over to the Confederate army. The ladies of Miss Farnsworth's are few, but to over-reference Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, though they be but little, they be fierce. (Seriously, that quote is all over the fucking place - on Pinterest, on pillows, shirts, posters...it's like the Basic Bitch mantra of 2017). And yo, these girls is bored af! They can hear the war off in the distance, but they can't touch it, can't assist. Besides embroidery and lessons and drying flowers, there ain't much to do around the old seminary. Elle Fanning's Alicia wastes not a cottdamn second making her *scandalous* intentions clear. The other young ladies, Jane, Marie, and Emily, all form mild fascinations with McBurney, albeit in more innocent ways. Miss Martha starts to get those, you know...tingles...down there...and tries to make it with our main mans (albeit unsuccessfully). But it's repressed, brittle, beat-down Edwina (my girl Kirsten Dunst) who is vibing with McBurney the most. Their relationship becomes a central pillar within the story, and illustrates a darkness not only in Edwina, but within all of our fine, Southern, Christian women at the heart of the story.

If you've read other reviews, you probably know how the story takes a turn for the worse, and then a turn for the worser. I won't recount it all here because you can read about it yourself, or better yet, see it in the theater. You may have also read that Coppola chose to whitewash her adaptation by erasing primary slave character Hallie from her film. Of her decision, Coppola said,

"I didn’t want to brush over such an important topic in a light way. Young girls watch my films and this was not the depiction of an African-American character I would want to show them."

And to that, I have to say, I'm so disappointed. Because Coppola is a woman who, on paper, seemingly has everything. And resources to make really great, meaningful films with powerful messages. And a platform to get whatever message she wants across to millions of people. Who instead chooses to take the easy way out. But Sofia, isn't Hallie like, a really important character? Why make this film in the first place, and then only show the white perspective when it's based during a time when slavery was so prevalent and one of the primary drivers of the Civil War to begin with? I get wanting to be respectful but do you not watch the news, Sofia? Do you not know a single black person? Avoiding a discussion of race in a movie in which slavery is such an ingrained part of the landscape is shameful, lazy. It leaves me with a very bad taste in my mouth.

As much as I adore the work of Coppola, by the film's conclusion I was left wondering, as I have with some of her other films, "Cool! But so fucking what?" The Beguiled is lovely to behold - shots are languid and sumptuous, the main trio of performances from Kidman, Farrell, and Dunst are more than effective, the story is tight at only 94 minutes. But movie, what are you trying to say? And you, Coppola, what are you voicing about femininity other than (white) girls can play just as much as the (white) boys? I just don't have a clue. The Beguiled didn't draw me in so much as alienate me, similar to McBurney's eventual effect on 86% of the ladies at Miss Farnsworth's. I still love you Coppola, but I don't get you.