Paul Verhoeven is considered one of world cinema’s nice provocateurs (the creator of Primary Intuition, Starship Troopers and Elle) and but essentially the most stunning factor about Benedetta – his story of lesbian nuns in Seventeenth-century Tuscany – is how tame and even tasteful it seems to be. True, the plot (freely lifted from Judith C Brown’s 1986 e book Conceited Acts) hinges on the looks of a dildo whittled from a statue of the Virgin Mary – an incident which little doubt led to the movie being picketed on the New York movie competition and outright banned in Singapore.
For all that, Verhoeven’s dealing with is extra foolish than savage, extra playful than profane, which ensures that the image’s cloistered warmth by no means involves the boil. Virginie Efira performs the novice nun who sparks mass hysteria; Charlotte Rampling the bitter Mom Superior who insists that God’s biggest miracles hardly ever occur in mattress. Each seem like having fun with themselves, rattling merrily via all of the stage-managed mischief, the flamboyant excessive jinks, the showboating satire. On the threat of insulting Benedetta, it’s largely good, clear, healthful enjoyable.
