The Beguiled (4/5 Stars)

In the midst of the American Civil War, on an abandoned Southern plantation, there remains a girls school, seemingly marooned from the world. It is headed by Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman) and employs one teacher named Edwina (Kirsten Dunst). She teaches five girls ranging from eight years old to an almost adult named Alicia (Elle Fanning). One day the youngest girl finds an injured Union soldier on the road named Corporal McBurney (Colin Farrell). He is taken into the plantation where the women go about nursing him back to health.

According to the dictionary, to beguile means to “charm or enchant (someone), sometimes in a deceptive way.” The titular “Beguiled” in this movie is perhaps everybody in it. It is a case study in very polite sexual tension. It is not just that Colin Farrell is handsome, and he is, or that the house is full of hospitable southern women who are quite beautiful, and they are, it is that there are several dynamics in between all the characters playing at once. The union soldier is injured so he must rely on the women. But the women are trained by the culture and the time period to acquiesce to the man. But the number of women in the house far outnumber the man. But the women are competing amongst themselves for the man’s attention.

It is a credit to the writing and direction of this movie, that the above does not drown itself in melodrama. Instead through very fine attention to detail and pointed understatement the situation hovers between absurdity and suspense. There is something funny about the women offering the man a home-cooked meal (“would you like some pie, corporal? It’s my special recipe.”) at a dinner they have all dressed too much up at, and also something sinister about it given that any actual sexuality would have drastic consequences. The consequences again are on several levels: The impropriety of such a lady-like institution harboring any such sensual situation, the jealous competition between the ladies themselves, and then there is the war waging outside that technically makes the man and all the women sworn enemies.

The Director is Sofia Coppola, who based her screenplay off a previous movie of the same title. (I bet this remake is much better.) Ms. Coppola perhaps more than anybody in the business is a good argument for nepotism. The thing is that, and if you ever watch interviews with Ms. Coppola perhaps you would agree with me, Ms. Coppola doesn’t really come off, forgive me, as a particularly interesting person. She comes off strikingly competent, yes, but way too literal to be engaging. For those who generally enjoy the insight of a director's interview, Ms. Coppola has a way of making it seem like there is less to the movie than meets the eye. Of course, this shouldn’t be held against her because what counts is the movie and not her personality, and she does make good movies. I simply find it hard to believe that she could have risen through the ranks without her last name because its hard to believe she could ever successfully pitch a movie.

But whatever the reason she gets to make movies, it is a good thing that she does. Most directors aren’t like Sofia Coppola and her movies in turn are not like most. Just as nobody but Coppola would imagine a biopic about Marie Antionette without a beheading, here nobody would have had the follow-through to base a movie for such a sustained period of time on tiny movements, glances, and phrases that may or may not mean what they say they mean. Counter-intuitively, “The Beguiled” may be a movie you should see in a theater because it is small. If you saw it on Netflix, you might miss a good portion of what is happening.

When the movie finally does get dramatic it is very satisfying. The ensemble is perfectly cast. In particular, Nicole Kidman, as the head-mistress, and Elle Fanning, as a really bored girl, do well in their roles. Given the general dearth of good roles for women, I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie got multiple Oscar nominations for acting. And Colin Farrell again made me regret ever thinking he was bad actor. I take it back. I really like that guy.

Wonder Woman (4/5 Stars)

A standard hypocrisy implicitly permeates most action blockbusters, which rely on strong-armed violence to solve problems all the while preaching the modern day values of pacifism and tolerance. In Wonder Woman, such hypocrisy is explicitly brought to the forefront and an elemental part of the plot and philosophy of the movie. Wonder Woman, also known as Diana, the Roman version of the Greek Goddess Artemis, has spent her entire life in the secret realm of the Amazons, a Greek tribe of woman warriors. There is a mythology in her tribe about a woman warrior from stopping all the wars of the world by killing her brother Ares, the Greek God of War. (I’m not sure why Diana and Ares are in the same story. Really it should either be Diana and Mars or Artemis and Ares, but whatever). The secret realm is penetrated accidentally by a British pilot named Steve Trevor in a World War I by-plane escaping German forces circa Istanbul. Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine, describes to the Amazons for the first time what is going outside their cocoon. It is the War to End All Worlds. It’s been going on for years and seemingly won’t ever stop.

Diana, played by Gal Gadot, sees her destiny. She becomes convinced that a particular German is Ares and that she must take her sword and shield out into the world and kill him in order to end the war. That this plan could possibly work would appall any lightly seasoned student of history. The tragedy of World War I was that it took so long and so many lives before the forces realized that further violence would not help them “win” the war, at least not in any traditional sense of the word, and that neither side was the “bad” side. I had a sinking feeling during much of the movie that Diana might actually succeed in her mission and thus turn the movie into a dangerous piece of revisionist history. It was only until the last twenty minutes that I became relieved that the movie had turned the implicit hypocrisy of the modern blockbuster into a teachable lesson. (Although I have no idea what Wonder Woman may have actually learned if she is still bandying about the modern day world trying to solve problems with sword, shield, and costume.)

Yes, “Wonder Woman” has been competently directed in the fight scenes, but most of the film’s fun comes between the interaction of Chris Pine and Gal Gadot. Steve Trevor though he is right when he describes himself as an above-average male, knows that Diana, being a goddess, is his superior. He takes this in stride and the movie does not make a big deal out of it. Actually, if I had to make a model of one particular aspect of this movie as a teaching point, I would show the superior way “Wonder Woman” treats the subject of misogyny. As this movie takes place in World War I in a European society entirely controlled by men, there must needs to be the obligatory scenes of men objecting to a woman in the room and so on. I’ve seen this scene many times and have learned to take its general heavy-handedness like I take my cough syrup, with reluctance but knowing its good for me. That is until “Wonder Woman.” In this movie, these scenes are are played with nuance and are consistently funny. The point is still being made, but watch “Wonder Woman.” It does it better.

“Wonder Woman” was directed by Patty Jenkins. In 2003, as her directorial debut, Patty Jenkins made the great movie “Monster” starring Charlize Theron. Then she fell off the face of the earth, not directing another mainstream movie for fourteen years until this years “Wonder Woman.” This, in my mind at least, is the best living evidence of the idea that woman directors are treated unfairly in the movie-making industry. Patty Jenkins should be making a movie every other year. She shouldn’t have to wait until a bunch of studio heads sit around a boardroom and conclude after much deliberation that they would look like shmucks if “Wonder Woman” were directed by a man.

More women writers and directors would certainly go a long way in making men look better in movies. “Wonder Woman” is a good example of a trend I’ve spoken of before: that members of one sex have a tendency to idealize members of the other. Well, in “Wonder Woman” the most interesting and noble character isn’t Diana. As the main character in an origin story, she has a lot to learn and must have room to grow. No, the best person is the man, Steve Trevor, and it is his noble efforts to stop the war and help Diana with her mission that provide the heart and soul of the movie. If we had more women writers and directors who wrote stories with women as main characters, we would have more male characters like Steve Trevor, an above-average man, instead of say the multitude of man-childs that have dominated the comedies and blockbusters of the past hundred years of cinema. I will be sorely disappointed if I have to wait another fourteen years for the next Patty Jenkins movie.