The French Revolution, if made into a Disney ride

Rating: 1/10 (19 March 2007)

My wife made me watch this one. She even had to admit that when it was over, she didn't like it either. There really isn't anything to learn from this "visual lard", as another reviewer aptly put. It did remind me of a bad wedding cake, all fancy icing designs, but tasting like sugar and lard. Sophia Coppola may have good taste in music, but her directing style has no substance. Also, while I liked most of the 80's tunes she used in the movie, they seemed jarringly out of place in this fluffy period piece. This was supposed to be about Marie Antionette and her life, which was mainly defined by the French Revolution and the fact that she was beheaded! Why was it fluffy and trite?
Sophia portrays Marie as an innocent valley girl socialite, complete with little dog accessory and penchant for partying and attaining ugly shoes! At the same time, we are supposed to sympathize with her, even though she never seems to care about anybody but herself. I was actually looking forward to seeing her get beheaded. They didn't even show anything! The utter cop-out of an ending just showed her and her socially retarded husband riding away like they were leaving on a holiday, to use a British term! There was one brief scene of the peasants shouting gibberish while Antionette goes out on the balcony and does some stupid bow for some unfathomable reason. The crowd, when shown for a brief few seconds, looked like a bunch of people going to the Renaissance Fair of something! They looked nothing like starving, mad-as-hell poor French people! That was ridiculous.
The casting seemed strange as well. Poor Kirsten Dunst seemed completely out of her element. She didn't even attempt an Austrian accent! Also, when she is shown undressing, she looked dangerously underweight! It wasn't sexy! What is it about female actresses and their refusal to eat normally? Rip Torn looks bizarre here in French garb, and Molly Shannon and Jason Shwartzman seems completely miscast as well. There really was no depth to French culture shown here as well. It seemed as if virtually no research was put into this. Overall, this movie just had nothing in it I liked.