The Beguiled in 8 Succession Gifs
Makes sense to me!
This one took me a while. Here’s my defense: there’s too much other good stuff on! Did you watch History of the World Part II? The new Vincent Gilligan show, starring Bob Odenkirk and based on a novel by Richard Russo? New Yellowjackets? There’s a Top Chef world championship, for sous vide’s sake!
And folks, that is not even getting into this season of Succession. As I write this, we are one day out from what I’m sure will go down as a historic Episode 3 (I had this whole GIF plan well before having my mind blown last night, for the record).
Anyway, here, without further ado, is an adherence to the particular area of popular culture I have already committed to covering, told through the lens of a completely different cultural phenomenon, or what I like to call
Colin Farrell Is a Civil War Union Deserter, But What Does Cousin Greg Think About It??
(spoilers ahead for the 2017 movie The Beguiled, but not for Succession, I’m not a monster)
A girls’ school in a stately old mansion in the woods of Virginia, 1864. Nicole Kidman is matriarch to sixish pre-to-post-adolescent girls. Kirsten Dunst, the oldest, teaches French to the other girls and silently pines to be anywhere else. Elle Fanning, the horniest, leads the other girls like iron filings towards magnetic wounded hottie Farrell, a Union soldier who fled during battle and ended up hurt under a tree squarely in Confederate young ladies learning French territory. Horniness and violence ensues.
…yeah, we know, it’s the Civil War. Nicole Kidman et al are taking a real chance by letting Colin stay with them as good southern ladies, and he’d better mind his P’s and Q’s or they’ll find some soldiers and report him as a deserter (soldiers are an implied presence, and there’s constant cannon fire and muted gun shots in the background as they go about their ladylike chores that made me pause the movie to make sure it all was, in fact, coming from the film and not real life).
Here’s some good news about this movie: in it, Colin Farrell has an Irish accent, and he also looks great.
Once the young ladies figure this out (mercifully for them, they haven’t experienced his American accent), they all get pretty horny, and then everything starts going wrong. Colin gets decidedly uncharming as he starts to suspect his horny captors have evil intent…
…that’s right, he goes all Cherry Jones and starts to freak out and get violent, like this…
…poor Cousin Greg.
So in conclusion, Colin Farrell learns not to be a deserter in enemy territory, Nicole Kidman and her charges learn that horniness for a wounded stranger can be less fun than it seems, and the Roy family continues to emotionally and psychologically manipulate each other in their individual quests to gain financial and political power while periodically being brought face to face with the limits of their own inner lives, which have been shaped by inhuman levels of wealth and the ruthless trappings of late-stage capitalism.
The Beguiled was ok. It wasn’t bad. Kind of underwhelming. I’ll leave it to someone else to sum it up better than I can.
Thanks Cousin Greg! We love you.
