Putting day-glo lipstick on a pig

Rating: 4/10 (14 January 2017)

Historical costume dramas suck. With a few exceptions ("Amadeus", "Elizabeth") they're stuffy, pompous and boring. That's why I had such high hopes for "Marie Antoinette", Sofia Coppola's punk rock take on the doomed French queen's reign. It sounded like such a great idea: French aristocrats kicking it to Siouxsie and the Cure! Day-glo royal wigs! Rock'n'roll, French Revolution-style!
But when I saw it, my high hopes were crushed. "Marie Antoinette" has all the affectations of rock'n'roll, but none of the energy and passion. It's just a stuffy, pompous and boring historical costume drama, with Manic Panic hair and a decent soundtrack.
In 1770, Marie (Kirsten Dunst) is married off to Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) to create an alliance between France and Prussia. She feels lost and alone in her new kingdom, where she is disliked by the Royal Court and ignored by her manchild husband. She numbs her unhappiness with extravagant parties and expensive toys, which take a toll on the French economy and anger the starving peasantry, ultimately setting the stage for a bloody uprising.
And yes, she listens to cool bands and dyes her hair. But there the fun ends; the majority of this movie is spent watching Marie lounging around the palace and having lackluster affairs with people who look just as bored as she does. The characters are given little to do but stand there, look pretty, and go through the motions of a flat, boring story. My God, this movie is dull, and all the hair dye and mix tape soundtracks in the world doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
As the title character, Kirsten Dunst has an air of sweetness and charm, but it's stifled by a one-dimensional character. We want to like her, but the script never gives us the chance - we never meet the person behind the crown, because there doesn't seem to be one. She's a Barbie doll, pretty but plastic, with nothing beneath her shiny surface.
The supporting cast goes to waste, as well. Schwartzman seems bored with the only part in the film more underwritten than Dunst's; as Her Majesty's chief advisor, the gifted comedian Steve Coogan has maybe 10 lines, none of them funny; and Rip Torn (as the young king's father, Louis XV) looks flustered, as if he doesn't know what he's doing there. Watching the film, I could relate.
To call "Marie Antoinette" a failed experiment gives it too much credit: the word "experiment" implies that someone took a risk in trying something new. This movie just trudges through the motions of being a boring historical picture, with the occasional stream of neon and a Blondie or Gang of Four song in the background. That's not experimentation; that's putting Day-Glo lipstick on a pig.