“You’re a most unwelcome visitor,” Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) informs the wounded John McBurney (Colin Farrell) in a new trailer for Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled.” “And we do not propose to entertain you.” Without missing a beat, John fires back: “You’ll find I’m easily amused.”
Judging from the footage, what amuses the Union soldier is manipulating Martha and the other Southern women who have taken him in to their boarding school to convalesce. Without much effort he seduces Edwina Dabney (Kirsten Dunst), a teacher, and Alicia (Elle Fanning), one of the older students. He also manages to emotionally and physically coerce Alicia into doing his bidding.
The women strike back, though. They appear to poison John — and those aren’t the only consequences he faces. Covered in blood, Martha orders her girls to “Go to the smokehouse. Get the saw. Now.”
Written and directed by Coppola, “The Beguiled” sees Coppola reuniting with her “Virgin Suicides” and “Marie Antoinette” muse Dunst and “Somewhere” star Fanning. The film is based on Thomas P. Cullinan’s novel “A Painted Devil.” Cullinan’s book was previously adapted into a movie in 1971, also called “The Beguiled.”
Coppola’s other credits include the “The Bling Ring,” and “Lost in Translation,” and the Netflix variety special “A Very Murray Christmas.” Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2004 for “Lost in Translation.”
You can still catch all three “Beguiled” leading ladies in theaters. Fanning stars in “20th Century Women,” Dunst has a supporting role in “Hidden Figures,” and Kidman appears in “Lion,” for which she earned an Oscar nod this year.
“The Beguiled” will make its world premiere in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs May 17–28. Kidman will appear in three other projects screening at the fest: John Cameron Mitchell’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties,” co-starring Fanning, horror-drama “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” and season two of Jane Campion’s “Top of the Lake,” entitled “China Girl.”
You can catch “The Beguiled” in select theaters June 23, with a wider release scheduled for June 30.
