Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Written by David Birke and Paul Verhoeven, based on the book, "Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy" by Judith C. Brown
Starring Virginie Efira, Daphne Patakia and Charlotte Rampling
MPAA Rating - Not Rated, but contains explicit violence and sex and is recommended for mature audiences
Runtime: 2 hrs, 7 mins
Now in theaters

 by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

With the story of Benedetta Carlini, the lesbian, possibly-stygmatic nun, Paul Verhoeven is firmly back in his familiar milieu--he combines religious imagery, graphic violence, even more graphic sex, with a heaping helping of camp to glue it all together.  No one does it quite like Verhoeven does.  

Benedetta is based on a true story.  The film does not begin with the familiar announcement that usually accompany these types of movies, possibly because the filmmakers didn’t want to be confined by good taste or a sense of honoring a true person and a true story.  Instead, the film begins with Benedetta as a child on her way to submit her life to a convent.  On the way, she and her family are stopped by robbers.  Benedetta orders the Virgin Mary to intervene, and a wind blows, a small bird appears, and shits directly into the eye of one of the robbers.  The criminals can’t prove it wasn’t divine intervention, and they thought it funny and gutsy, so they move along.  Fair enough.

Benedetta believes she can communicate directly with the Blessed Virgin and with Christ Himself.  After her father pays the dowry and she is accepted to the convent, she prays to a statue of the Virgin Mary.  It collapses on her and she begins suckling at the statue’s exposed breast.  

This is all within maybe the first five to ten minutes of the movie?  So, you know what you’re in for.  At this point, you know if you’re going to stay or if you’re going to bail.  

18 years pass and Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia), a newcomer to the convent, whose own dowry is paid by Bendetta’s family in a moment of compassion, stirs up feelings in Benedetta (now an adult, played by Virginie Efira) she never knew she had.  They almost immediately begin a relationship together. Their scenes of sex are graphic and, indeed, blasphemous, involving religious figures as sex toys.  

For all the film’s salaciousness, it is told sincerely.  Even though there are moments of pathos built into a scene where two giggling nuns take a dump together, I believe Paul Verhoeven is being genuine in his affection toward the characters.  You know what you’re getting into when you see one of his movies.  

Benedetta has visions, or possibly hallucinations, of Christ.  Christ saves her from snakes.  So, she believes, she has the blessing of God to continue her “righteous” path--after all, who better to dictate righteousness than directly from the source.  

Charlotte Rampling plays the convent’s abbess.  She does not believe Benedetta’s stories, her visions and becomes increasingly incredulous when stigmatic wounds begin to appear--especially when they appear on all the right places of her body, except for the crown of thorns around the head.  After pointing out the discrepancy, the wounds appear… within reach of a broken shard of glass.

Whether the wounds are true or false, peoples’ own beliefs are exposed and doubled down.  If they want to believe Benedetta’s visions, they believe her with unwavering ferver.  If they doubt her stories, they want to expose her through means of torture and have her burned at the stake to death.  

As this drama unfolds within the protected walls of the convent, the Black Plague rages and people are dying in the streets.  A comet appears in the night sky after Benedetta receives her wounds.  For some, these are omens that God is angry.  

When I saw Benedetta, there were protestors outside, shaking signs decrying the so-called blasphemy of the film, which only made everyone inside want to see it even more.  Unfortunately, with all the rage, it’s not quite that good, but like all films that receive ire without ever being seen by those angry enough to tell the whole world that they’re angry, I would recommend checking it out because the message is rather simple and ageless: Faith can be a wonderful thing and zealotry can be a terrifying thing.  Religion, like love, can lead to obsession.

Benedetta is not Essential Verhoeven, but it is much better than I’m likely making it sound. It is hilariously over-the-top in its exploitation of sex and violence, but it is also a lot kinder and gentler than you would expect.  Verhoeven appears to be in Softy Mode here, reeling it in a little bit.  He seems to care greatly about what happens and, at the end, you might be surprised by what happens--and who does, and who doesn’t get a happy ending.  Although, like so many of his movies, “happy” here is a relative term.