Hollow...but gorgeous!

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2007)

The story of Marie Antoinette is a well documented one.We know that she ascended the throne of France as a very young teenager,led a luxurious but vacuous life as empress,and was eventually a victim of the French revolution.Director Sofia Coppola presents this rich - but ultimately empty - existence in her absolutely gorgeously mounted film.The problem lies in the fact that she takes too long to relate this tale.The ennui of life at the French palaces was probably all too real,but to be shown on film,it needs to be presented in an entertaining manner.It is here that Coppola fails.The film appears to be merely a montage of sequences depicting the repetitiveness and weariness of life in the royal halls and galleries of the French monarchy.While Kirsten Dunst in the eponymous role and Jason Schwartzman as her husband,King Louis XVI,are undoubtedly good,the film often gets cumbersome.On the flip side,however,is the stunning location filming,the remarkable art-direction and the absolutely sumptuous costume-design.In fact,I will have to concede that this is perhaps the best looking film I have ever seen! The much debated modern musical score does jar occasionally but is certainly not as much of a hindrance as I had anticipated it to be.Coppola is certainly a thinking director who seems to have inherited her legendary father's genes,but I really hope she picks scripts with a little more meat on them.