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Benedetta Movie Review

Benedetta is a 2021 French biographical period drama directed by Paul Verhoeven. It’s a provocative movie that is all about shocking you without ever providing anything else.

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“What’s happening is blasphemy“

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A 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair, but it’s her shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its very core. First and foremost, I am getting really annoyed by all of these directors making anti-religion movies, but only focusing on Christianity and never Islam. This isn’t brave in the 21^st century and I am calling them out on it.

With that being said, I did find the movie fun in a trashy sort of way. It is silly, yes, but some of this story actually happened in real life, which surprised me a lot. This fact gave at least some validity to this ridiculous movie. The main issue I’ve had with it is that it doesn’t have anything to say about religion or morality besides the usual attack on those who impose their own interpretations of morality due to religion.

The dialogue is not as sophisticated as this type of movie needed to have in order to take it to the next level, and the overall technical aspects are also nothing special. Those “vision” sequences honestly looked very rough and amateurish, not to mention ludicrous. I hated those scenes as they were pointless and only there to provoke instead of say anything of value.

Benedetta does benefit from a fun, intense central lesbian relationship and both women are quite well developed and very well performed by the two competent actresses. The sex scenes were a bit too much (the one with the figurine was done in such poor taste), but at least the women were interesting.

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The movie does have a solid and intriguing first half, but the second half became so ridiculous to the point that it did not know whether or not it’s a period piece or a thriller or a straight-up horror movie. Verhoeven mashed all of these things together in hopes that it would all stick, but only bits and pieces did. Again, the movie is engaging throughout, which is impressive for its length, but still the ridiculousness of it all bothered me.

Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta is definitely very entertaining. It’s engaging throughout, which is no small feat given its length. The main characters and actresses are also quite terrific. The first half was very intriguing. But this is the type of overly sensational movie that was just meant to provoke sensitive viewers with its disturbing, ridiculous imagery without ever giving any proper exploration of religion and its relationship to sexuality. Also, I am getting really annoyed by all of these directors making anti-religion movies, but only ever focusing on Christianity. When they make such a film about Islam, then I will call them brave. But until that point, I will continue to call them out on their bullshit.

My Rating – 3