Argento plays the courtesan as alternately fawning and louche

Coppola’s restraint, her lack of concern for character development or backstory or psychology — her good qualities as a film director — frustrate critics. Winning Best Director at Cannes for The Beguiled somehow only added to her image as a dilettante. As something of a Hollywood deserter, with each new film she makes Coppola finds out that there really isn’t any refuge from the things she has left behind. The rich will always be with her, only slightly less of a problem for her than they are for everybody else. It is to her credit that she understands them, even as her elegance restrains her. If she elides the harsh truths that underpin the fading lives of her glamorous characters, her oblique approach does not save them from moral rot. Their eventual destruction is off-screen, indicated by shots of the ransacked interiors where they once celebrated their privilege.