From the director that once had a movie banned in Ireland for 22 years.
In what feels like a million years (but was actually about six months ago), we wrote the headline "Benedetta is undoubtedly going to be the most controversial movie of 2021", and at the time, that felt very accurate.
The problem now is that Benedetta actually won't be releasing in Ireland until 2022. Or, at least, that is our best guess.
In a recent review ahead of the US release later this month, AP News called the movie "Showgirls in a convent", which was probably intended as an insult, but instead got the fans of the camp erotic thriller even more excited to see it.
Benedetta is directed by Paul Verhoeven, the man behind brilliant movies such as RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers.
He also happens to be the director of Showgirls, which was banned from release in 1995 with no reason given, before being released uncut in 2017.
As for his new movie, it is semi-based on the true story of a 17th century Italian nun, here named Benedetta Carlini, who lives in the abbey of a convent in Tuscany. She was considered to be mystical and venerated by her religious entourage, before being finally arrested and judged for sapphism.
Despite the AP News review, it has received mostly positive feedback, currently scoring 69 on Metacritic, with The Wrap saying the following about the movie:
"You can’t call a film as lurid and alive as Benedetta a closing statement, but there is something valedictory about the erotic religious drama, which finds time to explore questions of voyeurism, sadism, masochism, systems of power, perversion, repression, rebellion, storytelling, divinity, irony and belief. Oh, and sex - plenty and plenty of nun-on-nun sex."
MUBI and IFC Films have picked up the release for the UK and Ireland, but as per Benedetta's IMDb page, only the UK has a confirmed release date at the time of writing. The Irish release date is usually in line with the UK, so we should - SHOULD! - be seeing it at the same time.
Benedetta has a UK (and hopefully Irish) release date of 25 March 2022.
Clip via IFC Films
