Who ever didn't like this movie is an IDIOT!

Rating: 10/10 (17 September 2007)

First of all, to all you anal retentive accuracy buffs, this movie was not intended to be an historical rendition of the language, accents, or exact events of Marie Antoinette. This was an artistic, creative and musical interpretation on the idea of her. If you are a dull, snooty dolt then of course you will be exasperated that Kirsten Dunst talks like an American teenager. THAT WAS THE POINT! You probably also don't get Picasso, but guess what, he knew that both eyes don't really belong on one side of the head. IT'S ART! It's also a statement, a social and political point of view. So many young Americans today are more concerned with their love life and their wardrobe than the tragedies of the 3rd world happening around them. And even those who are aware have no real power to do anything about it. Yet so many radical extremists would love to behead every Britney Spears loving, Converse wearing tween, as a symbol of this country's extreme wealth and failure to do any good with it. It's easy to hate the young and the rich. It's much harder to identify with them and even care about them, yet Coppola and Dunst accomplish this wonderfully. I was enchanted from the beginning. Also, this movie spoke to me as a woman. It illuminates the very essence of being a girl, of wanting a dream life away from the emotional turmoil of reality. Struggling to please her family, forced to sexually pursue an immature Peter Pan type, always having to look her best, constantly criticized by her public. It spotlights the spirit of innocence and kindness that is also naivety and stubbornness. It is not important whether or not this was truly the way the real Marie Antoinette was. It's just about life, a real internal personal daily life. The music goes so well with the filming of action, it is really more like an extended music video, and Coppola's images are breathtaking and magical. I thought the post punk sound with the baroque images was just awesome! Historically, it actually is more realistic than most history books, in highlighting that the true decision makers of French foreign policy at that time were the advisers, not the royalty themselves, who really had no clue what was going on outside Versailles and were just trying to live up to what their elders and the court expected of them. Marie Antoinette probably never even said, "Let them eat cake", which is what makes us all dislike her when we first read about her in high school. This was more likely what the tabloids of that time were saying about her, using her as a symbol of wealth in the face of so much poverty occurring in France. Leave it to the press to stir things up. That's what makes her eventual downfall so tragic. It was completely out of her control, she was absolutely oblivious. The mob psychology of the French masses being unleashed on the delicate royalty, the scene I was dreading, is, thank god, not actually shown in the movie. It does though, make me think how truly sad it must have been for her, at the end, for her children and herself to fall prey to such violence and bloodshed. Such a horrible shock after such a beautiful life. Coppola didn't need to show the beheading that occurred years later, after imprisonment and attempted escape. We can all imagine that, we've seen gore before. What you rarely see, that she so masterfully created, was beauty: a young girl living that dream life of champagne and pastry, giving us a taste of what it might have been like to be a teenage queen. And also a sweet message, in that in spite of all her wealth and power, all she really wanted was a simple country life, in her little village with her little farm and her children and her friends. And for so many of us, isn't that secretly all we want too?