The Film Marie Antoinette Would Have Made About Herself

Rating: 2/10 (18 September 2006)

This film is so vacuous and self-indulgent, the friend who accompanied me to the screening remarked that this is exactly the film Marie-Antoinette would have made about herself.
Sofia Coppola's own life of privilege is so transparently on screen in every frame here, I don't know why she just didn't turn a camera on her rich, bored, indulged movie-making friends.
Like many people who enjoyed "Lost In Translation," I was looking forward to this. The fact that Judy Davis, my favorite living actress, is in it helped. But what a waste.
I guess Judy needs to work like everyone else, and this is the kind of high profile project that keeps her profile high among the Tinseltown movers and shakers who won't be honest with Sofia Coppola about what a turkey she's made.
All the PR guff about the costumes and the production design made on a limited budget. If you want to see beautiful images in a movie which cost a buck ninety-nine, rent Sally Potter's "Orlando." Each image is like a tableau in that film.
But don't waste your money on this one.