three is not the charm

Rating: 5/10 (17 March 2007)

Nepotism is alive and well in Hollywood, however Sofia Coppola proved her film-making talents tenfold with her first two films. She captured the pain of youth and the dark undertones of coming of age with a fresh eye in "The Virgin Suicides", and then she offered a highly original twist to a simple story about two lost souls wandering far from home in "Lost in Translation". Had "Marie Antoinette" been her feature film debut, perhaps her career would be written off as the result of the aforementioned nepotism gone awry, thanks to her father the legendary Francis Ford Coppola.
"Marie Antoinette" is an outlandish period piece starring the charming star of "Virgin Suicides", Kirsten Dunst, as the main character. The film is an interesting take on the eighteenth century tale of French royalty during a controversial transition. Unlike the usual stuffy period film in the Merchant-Ivory ("The Remains of the Day") tradition, Coppola's flick is bright, brash, and bursting at the seams with new wave music, modern ideals, and decidedly American accents. The juxtaposition is fascinating, as second wave feminist attitudes creep over gorgeous period visuals, but the frustrating and slow moving plot line grows tiresome and the well-intentioned attempt to perk up revisionist history for the younger generations, or whatever the point was, is mostly lost.