Contemporary, touching and bizarre (major spoilers)

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2007)

Renting this movie out on DVD, I had very little idea when I sat down to watch it as to who Marie Antoinette was. I was vaguely aware that she was the French monarch whose reign preceded the French revolution, inflamed by a remark she supposedly made about her people starving through lack of bread "let them eat cake". She was guillotined eventually after the revolution. This was all I knew going as I sat down to watch it.
The movie certainly stimulated interest in me to know more about the French queen, who the film does its best to portray sympathetically. In this, it largely succeeds and I found myself drawn towards Marie Antoinette and I found her story to be enlightening and in the end very moving.
Played by Kirsten Dunst, Marie Antoinette is an Austrian aristocrat's daughter, who is coerced as part of a family connection to be wife to the Dauphin (Jason Schwartzmann), son of King Louis XV of France. As part of the conditions of the marriage, she is required to produce with the Dauphin an heir to the French throne. But attempting this with the sexually passive and uninterested Dauphin, combined with the mindless intrigues and rituals at the French court at the palace Versailles, only serve to alienate Marie from the rest of the world around her...
The famed lavish excesses of Marie's lifestyle are here depicted as a logical reaction by her to the stifling gilded prison in which she finds herself, to really move or expresses herself freely. Preoccupied with trying to do this, as well as produce an heir, means Marie does not fully acquaint herself with the political and economic realities of her country until it is far, far too late. In fact the world outside the luxurious environs of French royalty is barely depicted or even referred to. There is ironic reference to French support for the American revolution being one of the things that fuels France's own. Only at the end of the movie, when the revolution reaches Versailles, does reality crash into Marie's self-absorbed world, which literally falls down around her ears. All of this, to me, was entirely logical. Cutting away to events other than what is happening with Marie could have undermined audience sympathy with her.
Though keeping her American accent, Kirsten Dunst does a commendable job as Marie. Dunst is one of a number of young Hollywood actresses (among them Natalie Portman, Anna Paquin and "Hard Candy"s Ellen Page) who pick their projects depending on their relevance and theme. In this, the role of Marie Antoinette is a step in the right direction for Dunst. Jason Schwartzmann is believable as her clueless husband and Steve Coogan is on fine form as Marie's guide and conscience. I would maybe have liked to have seen more of Rip Torn's King Louis XV, to draw a starker contrast between him and his son. As it is, I don't think we see enough of him.
Shot in and around Versailles itself, the attention to period detail (the clothes, shoes and food) is meticulous and the presence of a contemporary soundtrack really makes it come alive.
A very brave and ambitious project ably pulled off.