Review: Benedetta

Set in an Italian convent in the early 1600s with the plague a threat from outside, Virginie Efira stars as the title nun. After showing signs of stigmata, Sister Benedetta attains a higher position of power, much to the disapproval of previous Abbess, Sister Felicita (Charlotte Rampling). Meanwhile, Sister Benedetta enters a forbidden tryst with a recently arrived guest named Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia). Lambert Wilson plays a hypocritical papal representative sent to the convent to investigate the whole matter.

 

When you hear Paul Verhoeven (“Flesh + Blood”, “RoboCop”, “Basic Instinct”, “Starship Troopers”) has made a lesbian nun movie, you can’t help but have certain expectations, rightly or wrongly. You expect something batshit crazy and pretty graphic in the sex department. A nunsploitation throwback, basically. Based on a true story, director Verhoeven and his co-writer David Birke (“Dahmer”, “Gacy”, “Slender Man”) eschew all of that with this pointless 2022 film that is more thumb-twiddling “The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine” bore than the likes of the wild and crazy cult film “Satanico Pandemonium”, which is closer to what I had hoped for. It’s pretty lousy, actually.

 

Based on a Judith C. Brown book, you don’t get much of a sense of how you are meant to feel about any of the characters here, the central relationship, or homosexuality in general. Who was I meant to side with here? None of the characters are remotely likeable. And is this nun even gay if she’s having sex fantasies about Jesus…who admittedly has a vagina here? Yeah, that’s just about the one and only crazy element in an otherwise bland, godawful boring film that has pretty much the same story as in any nunsploitation film. When, after about an hour our lead actress has gone all “Exorcist” voice-change-y, I started to wonder if this was all a put-on, but even if this were meant to be funny, it’s too boring for that. Even the sex is boring! How is that possible in a Paul Verhoeven lesbian nun film? It feels like Verhoeven is awkwardly and completely ineffectively trying to take an exploitation subject and turn it into serious drama. However, the material is so inherently lurid and silly that it just comes off as awkward and dull. If ever a film needed the schlocky, sexy “Basic Instinct” treatment, this is it. Instead there’s barely any sex or trash to be found and none of it good. If this was meant to be taken seriously, perhaps Verhoeven wasn’t the filmmaker for it after all. "Black Narcissus" it ain't.

 

If you’ve ever wanted to see Charlotte Rampling spit blood, here’s your movie. Otherwise, I didn’t get anything out of this at all, though the performances are all fine. A stupid film with a stupid ending. It either needed to be more lurid, or simply a better-made film with a consistent tone. I just didn’t get what Verhoeven was trying to do with this one.

 

Rating: C-