Overlong, boring and inaccurate

Rating: 3/10 (4 June 2006)

Watching this movie, I was repeatedly reminded of the fifties "Sisi" trilogy starring Romy Schneider. Only, that had a plot. Here, all you get are the endless sweet-colored pictures, the occasional pomp&circumstance scenes, and the idealized, soft-focus versions of the real characters. And then all of a sudden (yet, still at least half an hour too late) it's all over, exactly at the point where the action, i.e., the Revolution starts. Okay, so Sofia Coppola was not aiming for a historically correct depiction of Marie-Antoinettes life. She must have realized that historical accuracy was not an option in a film that has Louis XVI's Parisians dancing in the foyer of an opera house that wasn't built for another 100 years. The question is, what WAS she aiming for? I must confess that I have no idea. Unless she was trying to convey to the viewer the boredom of the Queen's life. That worked - I was magnificently bored. The repetitive scenes of M-A's gambling, drinking and dressing are very colorful, but you fill up on them pretty quickly. The attempts at sketching a historical context are so perfunctory that I can't think why they bothered at all. And the much discussed use of pop music in the score is utterly random, a mere gimmick without any deeper meaning. There are no characters to identify with. Most of the cast never rises above caricature, with the gay hairdresser as the absolute nadir. Unbelievable that somebody still has the guts... Louis XV is not far behind, the acting verging on the amateurish. Dunst, too, has hardly more to offer than vague smiles, dimpled cheeks and perambulations in dazzling rooms; it is not like there is a script full of brilliant dialog that offers major acting opportunities. Instead, there's another box of shoes, another glass of champagne, another party. It's the cinematic variant of muzak. Anything positive? Well, one thing that is spot-on is the way the film shows how the lives of M-A and Louis were lived in public, and the often ridiculous and/or embarrassing consequences of this. Also, Coppola at least had the decency to grant M-A that she never actually said "let them eat cake". But it would have been so much nicer to see such accuracy embedded in a film that takes its subject seriously overall, and not merely uses it as an excuse to indulge visual sweet-tooths.