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Rating: During the time of the Civil War, Union Corporal Jonathan McBurney (Clint Eastwood), abandoned by his own in enemy territory and severely injured, is taken in by the female boarding school managed with an iron hand by Miss Farnsworth (Geraldine Page). The unexpected arrival immediately stirs erotic tensions and rivalries within the microcosm: the handsome soldier will initially try to take advantage of it, but then the game will get out of hand with tragic consequences, especially for himself.
A box-office flop, still unfortunately less known today than it should be, "The Beguiled" is the Siegel/Eastwood you wouldn't expect: a dark drama with gothic undertones that almost entirely departs from the typical output of the director but rightly ranks among his masterpieces, featuring a Clint who almost seems to parody his usual tough and rugged character. The style is also unusual: flamboyant, composite, full of dreamlike slow motions and superimpositions, thus far from the dry and violent excitement generally attributed to Siegel.
What hasn't changed is the director's worldview, his (un)poetic universe dominated by cynicism and cruelty, where there is no room for genuine feelings but rather the domination of man over man or, in this case, woman over man. Often accused of misogyny, The Beguiled indicts not the female gender (human nature is rotten, true for women as for men) but rather the hypocrisy, the repression of instincts imposed by customs and morals.
In the suffocating and claustrophobic atmosphere of the college, where sexual urges are repressed behind rigid behavioral codes, it is inevitable that the arrival of an outsider, a male, ends up catalyzing the increasingly pathological attentions of the protagonists and triggers the tragedy.
The Civil War in the background, highlighting its bloodier aspects and ridiculing any noble motives, only replicates and amplifies the morbid climate of the microcosm. True to his pessimism, the director forsakes a happy ending and concludes the film with the generalized triumph of lies and propriety, with the return of those masks that Jonathan’s presence had, for a short time, caused to fall.
From a supposed “hack” of B-movies, Siegel proves to be an extraordinary explorer of psychologies, capable of delving into the depths of his characters and bringing out their most hidden sides (see the disconcerting erotic dream of Miss Farnsworth) aided by the performances of actresses like Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman. The dreamlike and baroque style, full of formal refinements that are never self-serving (the opening and ending filmed in symbolic black and white), supports this exploration of the unconscious that often takes on expressionist, horror nightmare-like hues, as in the leg amputation scene.
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