It would be very appropriate to re-read St. Augustine's arguments on deceit to better understand Deception, by director Sofia Coppola, which has only been in theaters for a few days. The theme of the emotional stratagem, of the mental fraud, in fact, is firmly intertwined with that of the lie, voluntary or occasional, where sometimes one becomes the presupposition of the other. In human nature, despite the rational moral denial, lies and falsehoods are very present as, moreover, it largely happens in the animal world: an example for all where the cuckoo deceives the other birds by having its eggs look after in their nests.
On this balance, subtle and initially unstable, the story unfolds: we are in the middle of the American Civil War, in Virginia, in a luxurious manor house which has become the seat of a boarding school for boarders. One of the girls, during a walk in the woods, meets a wounded Union soldier and takes him home to be treated. The protagonist, Colin Farrell, finds himself in a formally hostile environment, directed by the always beautiful Nicole Kidman, but substantially well appreciated, perhaps even too much. The internal and external environment is suffused, shady, with the distant echoes of the ongoing war and immediately evokes a strong attraction towards the impending drama. With the same times as the classic tragedies, at a certain point events precipitate. When the tragedy occurs, the narrative times are broken: the conclusion is quick and decisive, and leads the viewer back to the real dimensions of human nature, some of which, love and violence, sometimes dramatically intertwine. The title of the film leads to an ambiguous terrain: in the original English, The beguiled, seems to lead one to believe that there is a subject who deceives and others who are deceived, but it does not seem so and everyone, more or less, participates in defining the events.
People like the film, it flows well, the characters play their roles correctly, the timing is right, the screenplay adequately supports the story. Sometimes the director goes too far in excessively stylized atmospheres, almost obsessed with optical formalisms intended to please the viewer but, in any case, the final product is worth watching. Not surprisingly, for this film, Sofia Coppola won the Best Director Award at the recent Canne Film Festivals. His stylistic code seems consolidated by now and it is easy to remember his previous work, The Garden of the Virgin Suicides, where many common elements return, starting from the difficulties of young teenagers.
The film has an illustrious precedent of 1971, directed by Don Siegel, with Clint Eastwood, where it fully resumes the plot.
