Beautiful, decadent, and disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (12 December 2007)

The soundtrack was good, and was used cleverly, but it wasn't enough to save the story which given the Sophia Coppola "let's just show our protagonist looking around and being isolated, and in pretty dresses", just kind of washes out, and just leaves you wanting, but not in a begging "Lost In Translation" way. There's not much historical context and important information like the age of the characters, Antionette is fourteen when she is first married, is left out, as is the more dramatic political later years and execution which might have redeemed the rest of the film's earlier fluff. Minimizing history and doggedly rejecting psychology, Marie Antionette, becomes the story of a teenage girl who buys lots of stuff, and engages in the sensual decadence of the world around her. Attempting to engage modern teenage girls with a historical character is an intriguing idea, especially via pop music, however the ideas all but end here, and were just left to wander through the beautiful french palaces and estates, with no more idea of why or what we are doing here than Antoinette herself, which I again understand and appreciate, however just because we cant engage the environment and context, doesn't mean we should be shut off from the subject as well, instead we should be delving deeper into the characters. This does not happen and so we are left looking at a clever advertisement for an idea, rather than the idea itself.