“Showgirls, however in a convent.” That’s how Benedetta has been offered, which actually solely scratches the floor of this supremely horny, foolish, surprisingly entertaining movie from ever-indelicate satirist Paul Verhoeven. Tailored from Judith C. Brown’s ebook, Conceited Acts: The Life Of A Lesbian Nun In Renaissance Italy, it has the burden of historical past behind it, as if to deflect towards accusations of implausibility. Sure, there actually have been attractive, mystic nuns in a Seventeenth-century abbey, in what’s supposedly the earliest written document of a lesbian relationship within the trendy Western world.

So that you may fairly assume it follows the ‘forbidden historic romance’ blueprint. Actually, the movie explores feminine need in a world that denies it, helped by humane and thought of performances from Virginie Efira because the title character and newcomer Daphne Patakia as her lover, with the always-dependable Charlotte Rampling eyeing them suspiciously because the sceptical, scowling Abbess.

However Verhoeven is simply too attention-grabbing — and too irreverent — a filmmaker to easily go down one well-trodden path. He appears fascinated by how this story intersects with sexual expression and freedom, energy dynamics and gender, and the clashing of cause and religion.

It’s a reckoning of faith as a lot as something, and ever the provocateur, Verhoeven appears to please within the sacrilegious. This can be a movie through which (inside the first 5 minutes) the blessed Virgin Mary takes the type of a small chook who poos into somebody’s eye; Jesus Christ himself seems as a horseback-riding, sword-wielding hunk; and a picket idol of the Virgin is original right into a makeshift dildo.

A lot of that is fairly straightforwardly humorous, and it’s exhausting to think about among the dialogue — co-written by Verhoeven and David Birke — hasn’t been performed for laughs. (As one church elder cries, “Lust? Between girls? Unattainable!”) Earnest and sometimes emotional performances from the solid hold issues the correct aspect of out-and-out comedy, however it’s a satire in probably the most forthright phrases.

Whereas Verhoeven’s final movie, the Paris-set, Isabelle Huppert-starring Elle, was understated and arthouse-y, Benedetta finds the director nearer to his Primary Intuition-era erotica consolation zone. The filmmaking right here is blunt, virtually cheesy. Anne Dudley’s rating is enjoyably sweeping, although it verges on tacky, whereas a CGI sky within the closing act, portending divine judgement, is laughably low cost. It’s a wholly European manufacturing — a Dutch director, working within the French language on a movie set in Italy — however to its marrow, that is B-movie exploitation Hollywood.

Inevitably, which means not each viewer will likely be singing from the identical hymn sheet. Some are certain to be offended; others will simply discover it juvenile or absurd. However true disciples will recognize the outlandish craft and braveness of Verhoeven’s finest movie in years: a feminist allegory a couple of girl establishing energy in a patriarchal system — by way of religion, love and dildos.