Sensuous and offbeat character study

Rating: 9/10 (2 September 2015)

Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006) has had a mixed reception since its release almost a decade ago. Those expecting your typical, 100 percent historically accurate period drama/biopic will no doubt harbor a distaste for this movie. To be honest, MA is more of a character study than a biopic detailing the rise and fall of a queen.
Coppola presents Marie Antoinette as she was when she came to the French court as a teenage bride-to-be: a culturally-alienated, flighty girl who finds solace in shopping and partying. It is a fascinating portrait of the woman and her world, a portrait that both criticizes and delights in the excess of the French elite. The whole picture is an exercise in sensual detail, reveling in silk dresses and decadent pastries and all the intricacies of 18th century European architecture, all done in candy colors and pastels.
The 1980s soundtrack usually comes under fire for being anachronistic, but I thought it was inspired to link the excess of the 1980s with the indulgent French court. Kirsten Dunst's performance is also a little more 21st century than 18th at times, but it all comes down to humanizing the character, making the audience realize that Marie Antoinette was a real human being, not just some dusty, distant entity relegated to historical texts and sumptuous paintings.
An underrated film and one of Coppola's finest. I think it will have a rich critical afterlife in the decades to come.