BENEDETTA
[FILM]
The stakes — or is that snakes? — are hig h for Benedetta (Virginie Efira).
★★★★
OUT 15 APRIL / CERT TBC 131 MINS
DIRECTOR Paul Verhoeven
CAST Virginie Efira, Daphne Patakia, Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson
PLOT In 17th-century Tuscany, Benedetta (Efira) is sent to a Catholic convent, where she spends her days piously and quietly. But when an unlikely romance begins with a new recruit (Patakia), Benedetta claims she’s having visions of Jesus — who wants to make her his wife.
“SHOWGIRLS, BUT IN a convent.” That’s how Benedetta has been sold, which really only scratches the surface of this supremely sexy, silly, strangely entertaining film from everindelicate satirist Paul Verhoeven. Adapted from Judith C. Brown’s book, Immodest Acts: The Life Of A Lesbian Nun In Renaissance Italy, it has the weight of history behind it, as if to deflect against accusations of implausibility. Yes, there really were horny, mystic nuns in a 17th-century abbey, in what is supposedly the earliest written record of a lesbian relationship in the modern Western world.
So you might reasonably think it follows the ‘forbidden historical romance’ blueprint. Certainly, the film explores female desire in a world that denies it, helped by humane and considered performances from Virginie Efira as the title character and newcomer Daphne Patakia as her lover, with the always-dependable Charlotte Rampling eyeing them suspiciously as the sceptical, scowling Abbess.