What a tasteless, meaningless sequence of pics!

Rating: 2/10 (15 June 2006)

Rarely saw such a pointless movie! Well, that is, if we can talk about a movie in this case. After seeing it, I became rather convinced that the order in which the images follow each other, could be put in any, arbitrary order to obtain almost the same effect (boring!!) as the original 'movie'. The character, as presented in the movie, of Marie-Antoinette, is utterly uninteresting. Hard to imagine why anyone would like to make a movie with as main focus this person. Arriving at Versailles, she very soon gets bored and equally soon gives away to costly forms of escapism: opera (the least costly, I suppose), expensive costumes, hairdressing, parties ... But, what is worse, we as an audience get even more bored than she does. Not one character is strong, pronounced or interesting. Of course, she gets criticism for her egocentric, egoistic behavior that costs a fortune, even considering the wealth of the royal family and entourage at that time at Versailles. And the common people, heating up for the French Revolution - that by the way, is not portrayed in any depth in this movie neither - and suffering more and more from hunger, of course also expresses its criticism on M-A. The thing more than half the time of this far too long movie is spent to however, is on the procreation of the royal dynasty, or rather, on the danger of non-procreation of it, since the consummation of the marriage isn't taking place. For this big problem, M-A is constantly receiving warnings and strongly recommended to put an end to this drama. Perhaps Sofia Coppola tried to make some sexual portrait of this epoque, I am not sure, but it is a fact (well, if we are to believe the movie with respect to this sexual related matter) that precisely concerning this point, M-A is the least to blame, the reason simply being an very inhibited and very clumsy husband (the future king Louis XVI). But, in all cases, the woman, - or in this case the future queen - seems to have been held responsible for the non consummation of the marriage. Well, in the end, the problem is solved, and M-A will give birth to two children, the second being a boy (the dauphin) who will of course be held responsible for the continuation of the glorious dynasty of the Louis, at least, if the French Revolution will not prevent that from happening, which it will. OK, lots more could be said on this movie, but I'll stop here. The pity is not only that this movie obviously painfully failed, but moreover that it failed with a very promising cast. I wouldn't say that Kirsten Dunst is a great actress, but with a total lack of any good or consistent script, she simply didn't get a fair chance. The other actors are even worse off: Sofia Coppola simply doesn't focus at all on anyone else than M-A, so an excellent actor like Jason Schwartzman doesn't even get a chance at all to save something from the total loss. A shame! I hope Sofia Coppola won't make another movie for a very long time now (or not at all), or if she does, that a good script writer will have been there to support her and hopefully a dozen of very good advisors of all kinds.