beautiful but meaningless

Rating: 6/10 (25 September 2006)

I was so blown away by Lost in Translation in 2003 that I was really looking forward to Marie Antoinette, and I was thrilled to discover when i was in Paris this summer that i could catch it before it opened in North America. While the film is beautiful looking and witty with its pop punk soundtrack, I was ultimately disappointed. I couldn't understand what Coppola was trying to say about Antoinette showing what felt like a hundred scenes of her trying on shoes, wigs, and frolicking in the grass. Are we suppose to pity her, like her, or hate her? Kirsten Dunst performance while strong in Coppola's first film The Virgin Suicides is incredibly weak here as she herself seems to have no idea how she's suppose to play the queen. And while I love Jason Schwartzman in wacky indie movies like Rushmore and I heart Huckabees I just didn't feel like he had the acting chops required to pull off this pretty serious role. I think that Coppola should avoid big flashy films like this in the future; small personal pieces are definitely what she's best at.