Oscar winner Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) is back with her adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s 1966 novel, The Beguiled.
Coppola’s movie, the second film version of the story of a Union soldier (Colin Farrell) who charms his way into a Confederate girls boarding school, reunites the filmmaker with stars Kirsten Dunst — who portrayed the eponymous Marie Antoinette in Coppola’s 2006 period drama and 1999’s The Virgin Suicides — and Elle Fanning, who starred alongside Stephen Dorff in 2010’s Somewhere. Oscar nominee Nicole Kidman also stars as the school’s headmaster.
An earlier adaptation of the story was made in 1971 and starred Clint Eastwood as the Union solider John McBurney and Geraldine Page in the role of the headmaster.
The teaser features a young girl, sporting pigtails and clutching a wicker basket, encountering an injured Farrell and enlisting the help of her headmaster Martha (Kidman) and fellow schoolmates (Fanning and Dunst) to carry him inside their lavish plantation-style manor. The introduction of the swarthy Union soldier quickly creates a stir amongst the devout, proper ladies of the house.
Related Stories
Passions ignite as Farrell is seen kissing, disrobing and tousling the sheets of the Southern belles. Violence lurks just beneath the passion, however, as intrigue builds and the question of who is working who comes into question. “What have you done to me, you spiteful bitches,” a distressed Farrell moans in a thick drawl.
