Review: Coppola's 'The Beguiled' disturbing and beautiful

Coppola's Civil War South is all mossy woods, buttoned-up dresses and gated plantations, realized in immaculate detail.

While Coppola broadens the story's female characters beyond the stereotypes shown in 1971, she leaves the soldier's motives less clear, which makes his life-altering transgression harder to understand.

Despite the war raging right outside her property, Ms. Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) has continued to run her Seminary for Young Ladies, with a single teacher, Edwina (Kirsten Dunst), and five students.

McBurney is locked in the music room, but his presence in the house causes a stir among its residents, distracting them from their daily routine of Bible studies, French lessons and etiquette practice.

[...] Coppola creates a portrait of the repressed, isolated lives of women and girls during wartime — even if the only overt signs of battle here are faraway explosions and the occasional cavalry coming by.

[...] without a clear understanding of what motivates they key characters, it's hard to know just what this feminist retelling is saying about men, women and the way they relate.

The Beguiled," a Focus Features release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "some sexuality.