Benedet­ta

Reunit­ing with his Elle co-writer David Birke, Paul Ver­ho­even returns to the big screen with a project some five years in the mak­ing. Fol­low­ing delays due to both Verhoeven’s hip surgery and the pan­dem­ic, the film was duly anoint­ed at the 2021 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, before releas­ing in the US amidst report­ed church protests.

It’s under­stand­able why reli­gious folk might take umbrage with the con­tent; Ben­det­ta recalls the sala­cious life of the blessed lady (Vir­ginie Efi­ra) who first appears as a pre­co­cious child who claims the Vir­gin Mary speaks to her. Her dot­ing par­ents pur­chase a place for Benedet­ta Car­li­ni in the Pes­cia con­vent of Tus­cany, run by the shrewd, mon­ey-mind­ed Abbess (Char­lotte Ram­pling) and it’s here that Benedet­ta comes into her own, expe­ri­enc­ing visions of Jesus and devot­ing her­self to a divine high­er power.

That is, until the imp­ish Bar­tolomea (Daphne Patakia) seeks sanc­tu­ary at the con­vent from her abu­sive father and broth­er; Benedetta’s par­ents pay her way into the church, and a clan­des­tine mutu­al attrac­tion rapid­ly devel­ops between the two. If you scan the Wikipedia page for ​‘nun­spoil­ta­tion’, the name Benedet­ta Car­li­ni appears, and what could be more tit­il­lat­ing than a les­bian Bride of Jesus who claimed to be in com­mune with the holy father?

Ver­ho­even has long been inter­est­ed in reli­gious sto­ry­telling, to the extent he pub­lished a book about the life of Jesus Christ in 2010, and here he applies his provoca­tive sen­si­bil­i­ties to the juici­est of sub­jects. The result is incen­di­ary – a lusty romp con­cern­ing repressed desire, the seedy under­bel­ly of organ­ised reli­gion and the ques­tion of whether it real­ly mat­ters if com­mu­nion is admin­is­tered at a church or between a lover’s thighs.

Unabashed­ly explic­it and mis­chie­vous, Benedet­ta suc­ceeds large­ly due to its com­mit­ted and mag­net­ic cast. Efira’s volatile turn in the title role is one for the ages, pre­sent­ing us with a woman we can’t take our eyes off, nev­er quite decid­ing if she’s a false prophet or blessed messenger.

Mean­while, Char­lotte Ram­pling deliv­ers her best per­for­mance in quite some time as the icy Abbess, while the Church itself is pre­sent­ed as a tool for finan­cial and polit­i­cal deal­ing rather than a sanc­tu­ary to com­mune with God. The film’s satir­i­cal slant, com­bined with the chem­istry between Efi­ra and Patakia, cre­ate fire­works, and while sim­i­lar tales of same-sex love under try­ing his­tor­i­cal cir­cum­stances remain pre­dom­i­nant­ly wrought and po-faced, Benedet­ta has a real sense of humour.

So yes, much will be made of the ​‘les­bian nun sex scenes’, but there’s so much more at play: cheer­ful dis­avow­ing of oppres­sive dog­ma; and cheeky sug­ges­tions about why the city of Pes­cia was able to avoid the plague.

This is a cin­e­mat­ic spec­ta­cle that’s sexy and grotesque in a way films just don’t seem to dare any­more, evok­ing Ken Russell’s The Dev­ils and, of course, Verhoeven’s much-maligned (but even­tu­al­ly reclaimed) Show­girls. For those with lit­tle-to-no faith in a high­er pow­er, Benedet­ta is a deli­cious, vis­cer­al provo­ca­tion, one that rev­els in the temp­ta­tion to sin and sin again.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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