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Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides) tackles an obscure remake of a 1971 film based on a book by Thomas Cullinan. The Civil War-era story centers around a small group of women and girls who are living in a nearly-abandoned but still operational girl’s school in the deep south. One of the young students discovers a badly injured Union soldier (Colin Farrell) and brings him into the school where the headmistress (Nicole Kidman) decides to to let him convalesce before handing him over to the Confederacy. But in the interim, the headmistress, her teaching partner (Kirsten Dunst), and one of the older girls (Elle Fanning) all become romantically and sexually infatuated with the helpless man. Once he gains his strength and joins one of them in bed, the others become envious and dangerous. Haven becomes Hell and charity becomes torture in The Beguiled.

Coppola’s version of the story is much more of a tone poem – austere, sparse, quiet, contemplative, and beautiful. The 1971 Don Siegel film is more of a drama-turned-horror movie, and I gotta say I much prefer the original film because of the way it defied genre expectations and surprised me with what kind of film it turned out to be. I also think Siegel’s version is more appropriately cast. Kidman and Dunst in particular are puzzling casting choices to me. Their characters are driven by insecurity and nervous sexual desire through most of the story. I found these qualities much better engendered in the performances of Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman in the 1971 version, while Coppola’s version scores higher marks with the younger child actors, cinematography, and production design.

The story, ambiance, and gender studies subtext are what I enjoy about this story. Both versions make solid cases, and beyond that I think it’s a matter of taste. Do you want a restrained version of the story, or one that embraces it’s genre roots?