Movie review: ‘Benedetta’ is an overheated, mystic lesbian nun thriller
Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, Paul Verhoeven probably would have eagerly pushed that person down a set of stairs to get his hands on this material, because it’s tailor-made to suit his risqué sensibilities.Hence, the Dutch auteur’s Benedetta (★★☆☆☆) might not be the most divinely right adaptation of Brown’s account of real-life 17th-century Sister Benedetta Carlini, but it is exactly the overheated, mystic lesbian nun thriller that viewers might expect from the man behind Basic Instinct and Showgirls.Filled with sharp objects and sharper glances, lurid violence, and lots of slow undressing, the film isn’t as single-mindedly effective as Instinct, nor as uproariously camp as Showgirls.