Another Misunderstood Monarch and a Dazzling Visual Recreation of 18th Century France

Rating: 5/10 (29 October 2006)

Director Sofia Coppola certainly takes an audacious look at the life of the legendary 18th century Queen of France who supposedly "let them eat cake" in this elaborately costumed 2006 film. At the same time, Coppola keeps the dramatic focus relatively small versus the expansive political backdrop of the story. The approach works to a point since the filmmaker has an obviously reflective handle on how a young girl can feel when thrown unexpectedly into the spotlight and then made mincemeat by her critics (think of her aborted acting career when 1990's "The Godfather III" was released).
The downside is that the dramatic arc of the French monarch's life feels somewhat misshapen by this unique perspective since the film's first three-quarters meticulously follows Marie's youthful ascent to the throne and her wearying efforts to consummate her arranged marriage to Louis XVI. There are throwaway scenes of shopping sprees with her ladies-in-waiting and an underdeveloped illicit romance with Count Fersen, all of which would not look out of place in an episode of "Sex and the City". Once she conceives and delivers her first child, the movie starts to feel cursory about subsequent events with little of the historic context needed to make the climax resonate.
For all the film's dramatic flaws, I have to say Kirsten Dunst is ideally cast in the title role. Starting her role as a 14-year old Austrian princess taken from her family, she captures not only the giggly vacuity but the sense of self-possession and decorum that makes her viable as a queen. A curiously cast Jason Schwartzman gained weight for the role of her bulbous, emotionally indifferent husband, Louis. He says relatively little but his natural awkwardness in period costume succeeds in making the king an ultimately sympathetic figure. Others come in and out of the story though with little resonance, even with proved scenery chewers like Judy Davis as the instructional Contesse de Noailles, Steve Coogan as the advice-giving Ambassador Mercy, Rip Torn as the libidinous Louis XV, and Asia Argento as his blatantly whorish mistress, Madame du Barry.
What does work well are most of the visual elements - the use of real Versailles locales augmented by K.K. Barrett's luxuriant production design, Lance Acord's candy-colored cinematography, and Milena Canonero's resplendent costumes. The anachronistic use of 1980's-era new wave music, blended with the Baroque music true to the period and Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin's original score, turns out to be a daring choice that works well toward Coppola's revisionist view of the queen. Yet for all the creativity on display, one is left to linger on the movie's unfulfilled possibilities of how the economic downturn and class disparities in 18th century France could be seen as a mirror for today. But that aspect obviously doesn't interest Coppola, who shows as she did in "Lost in Translation", a deep affinity for women caught out of place and the ways they handle their loneliness.