Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette isn’t the kind of biopic that we have grown accustomed to seeing these last couple years, which is nice, because let’s face it, they’re not that great. Once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. This on the other hand is almost as much a portrait of a place as it is a person. In this film, we follow Marie from her arrival in France, where she is literally stripped of everything from her home to the Revolution. It’s more of a study of the daily ritual of Versailles and how she is essential a bird in a gilded cage. She has everything she could possibly want except the ability to leave and all she really has to do is look pretty and, hopefully, reproduce. Although this film sort of looses its way towards the end with a subplot involving a French soldier, I admire the fact that we don’t see what we would consider to be the obligatory beheading. Marie is so cut off that she has lost all touch with how the commoners really live. Sure she may not have actually said “Let them eat cake,” but she’s as surprised as we are when the palace is stormed.
I knew Kirsten Dunst , who is far better than I expected, and Jason Schwartzman, who does whatever that thing is he does that is so funny, were in the cast but as I watched the credits I found myself asking myself, “Rip Torn is in this?” I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Patches O’Houlihan was playing Louis XV? I was more shocked to find that I loved it. To be honest, I’m not sure if I like him as the lecherous king who’s first criteria for judging Marie is her bust or Schwartzman’s fumbling to do anything he can to not consummate his marriage most. I also don’t want to leave out Judy Davis’s strong work as the dour Comtesse de Noailles, whose job it is to observe the aristocratic protocol, even if it means that Marie has to stand in the cold while it is decided who is of the proper rank to help her dress.
When I first started reading about this film, I was, admittedly, a little wary of it. As much as I liked Sophia’s other films, I knew that she was using this anachronistic music, which is a big turn off to me. Let’s face it, it didn’t work out so great for A Knight’s Tale, did it? Much to my surprise, the thing I liked most about Marie Antoinette is all these little out of place touches. Sophia has real skill with the camera and staging, allowing her to set the audience up so that everything can be ever so slightly eschew. I’m not exactly sure how she pulls it all together, but she absolutely does.
The only real problem here is that when you try and make a film about the boredom of the French aristocracy, you run the very distinct risk of boring your audience. Everyone isn’t going find this to be the case, but some of those people will just be fooling themselves. Having said that, part of me does believe that there is definitely meant to be a comment on Hollywood decadence. With Asia Argento, Danny Huston, Katrine Boorman and others, it seems like half the cast is someone’s son or daughter. It isn’t much of a leap to go from the late night parties, exorbitant spending sprees and total loss of touch with the common man who supports them that plagued pre-revolution French royalty to, well, the late night parties, exorbitant spending sprees and total loss of touch with the common man who supports them of today’s celebrity.
If you’re a fan of Sophia Coppola’s first two films, you’re probably going to enjoy this one. Just for my liking, Marie Antoinette is probably a little longer than it should be. It’s a pretty strong film up to a point. However, there’s only a certain amount of time you can show someone laying around being bored before I think to myself “I get it she’s bored and so am I.”
The Grade
- Story: B-
- Acting: B+
- Visuals: A
- Originality: B+
- Enjoyability: C+
- Overall: B
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