A long long movie

Rating: 4/10 (7 November 2006)

Marie Antoinette looks lovely, the music is nostalgic (if you remember the 80's) and the performances from the actors are fine. So why doesn't the movie work? Sofia Coppola takes us into the closeted world of Versailles where people gossip, eat fine food, wear lots of nice clothes and are generally oblivious to any national political activity. And that's about it. If Coppola's intention was to make us feel as if we were in Versailles i.e the routine, the royal protocols, the slow pace of life, then she succeeded. But it makes for a very dull movie indeed. How many times can you show Marie Antoinette choose a new pair of shoes, or a new dress, or the number of times she failed to get her husband interested in making babies! At one point I thought the film was going to last as long as it took Marie Antoinette to conceive her first child (7 years into her marriage). Then in the space of ten minutes the revolution is here and the film is over, no epilogue, no exploration of her time in jail, no head losing.
If the purpose of Coppola's film was to show how insulated the people staying at Versailles were, and Marie Antoinette in particular, then she has achieved this. Unfortunately the slow pace of the film coupled with the lack of any emotional involvement with the characters means you will be shouting Vive la Revolution after only an hour.