Director: Sofia Coppola
Year Released: 2017
Rating: 3.5
During the Civil War, Union soldier John McBurney (Colin Farrell) finds himself badly wounded in the leg in Virginia, but he's rescued by lil Amy (Oona Laurence) from a boarding school run by obstinate Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman) - over time, he tries to win the ladies' approval, flirting with Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) but ending up in the bed of Alicia (Elle Fanning). Coppola does a lovely job taking the hammy Don Siegel-Clint Eastwood movie from 1971 and adding a feminine (and moody) touch to it: it can be seen as the way a male in a female setting can incite jealousy and bickering ... and how that can backfire, with the females ultimately banding together to get revenge (not to mention how hard it is for a male to reject numerous coquettish advances) - the entire cast is fantastic, and the tension is palpable. Before that final plate of poisoned mushrooms (picked, ironically, by the same girl who 'saved' him), McBurney would have been better off turning himself in to The Other Men.
