Benedetta (2021)

At 82 years old, Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven isn't about to cash in his chips and start making dull costume dramas or sappy romantic comedies. Instead, for his sixteenth theatrical feature film Benedetta (2021), Verhoeven has set his sights on the true story of 17th century Italian nun Benedetta Carlini (Virginie Efira). The innocent young woman causes a scandal within the church when she claims to be plagued by visions, both religious and erotic, which have convinced her that she will become the new bride of Jesus Christ upon his return to the world. The head nun at the convent, Felicita (Charlotte Rampling) as well as the Nuncio (Lambert Wilson) become alarmed by young Benedetta's certainty that this is her destiny and hatch a plan. They pair Benedetta with an attractive nun named Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia) in hopes that she will make Benedetta come to see that she's mistaken in her visions. Instead, the two nuns discover a burning passion within them that can't be contained, one which threatens to burn down not the entire convent, but the very fabric of religion itself! Verhoeven seems to be continuing down the path his last two non-Hollywood features introduced with his film Black Book (2006) wherein he takes a real historical event and imbues it with lots and lots of sex! Virginie Efira and Daphne Patakia do about everything two women can do together. They both show all three b's and have plenty of graphic lesbian moments. Daphne even goes down on Virginie and then comes up to kiss her! In another scene Virginie grabs Daphne's hand and rubs it around the lips of her bush. Plus the two women even experiment with a Virgin Mary dildo. Yup. There's that. There's also some great supporting nudity, capped by Alexia Chardard, who squirts milk out of her breast! The devil may have made him do it, but god bless Paul Verhoeven!