Utterly Useless

Rating: 1/10 (20 October 2006)

Words fail me in how to describe the sheer charabanc banality of this movie.
For the historically minded, Marie Antoinette played a pivotal role in stirring up anti-monarchical sentiment in France mainly because of her frivolity, arrogance, disregard for court etiquette and protocol. Her inability to produce an heir was caused by the non-consummation of the marriage for the first seven years of her wedded life. These points are brought out in the film, in such an anodyne way, that the viewer is not aware of their importance other than that of Marie Antoinette's failure to produce a baby turned the French people against her.
Coppola obviously views Marie Antoinette as a feminist icon and wants to make the statement that women should not be regarded as baby producing machines.
The real life Marie Antoinette sought solace and comfort from her unconsummated and loveless marriage by taking both male and female lovers. There is not a hint of her sexual frustration in the film. These scenes should have been shot and included in the film so as not to titillate the audience but to illustrate how Marie Antoinette's crass behaviour succeeded in scandalising and alienating, not just the French Court, but also the French people. All that is shown in the film is just one adulterous affair with a Swedish nobleman. Coppola misses the opportunity to show that Marie Antoinette grew to love her husband during the course of their marriage and that she matured considerably, as a woman, after she became a mother.
Coppola entirely neglects to show the emotional and psychological development of Marie Antoinette. In the film, Coppola's Marie Antoinette is as much a teen brat at the end of the film as she was at the beginning though Coppola does give Marie Antoinette, at the end of the film, the pathos to predict that she is saying goodbye to her home and the sad, foreboding realisation that she will never return.
Coppola has whitewashed the life of Marie Antoinette to suit her own prejudices. Nothing is allowed to detract from the image of Marie Antoinette as the troubled teen set upon by an unsympathetic Court. The more one watches the film, the more one realises that Coppola had projected the character of Princess Diana into the script when she set about writing her character of Marie Antoinette. No one should ever be surprised if Coppola does, indeed, make a film on the life of Princess Diana, in the future.
What is not brought out is the historical context, Marie Antoinette playing at being a shepherdess with scented sheep while French peasants toiled and endured under the worst droughts of the 18th Century. There is no scene to show that the luxury of French Court life was paid for by millions of poverty stricken French peasants.
This film could best be entitled - "Scenes from a Life of Indolence" since what is shown, is so inconsequential and trite, such as Marie Antoinette in the bath, in bed with her clock loving husband, enduring the embarrassment of court gossip at not being pregnant.
Yet Marie Antoinette, played by the punkish Kirsten Dunst, remains a remote, cold figure. The viewer does not warm to her. She is simply not likable. The viewer simply does have anything to care enough about her. Sofia Coppola, the writer and director of this execrable piece, lists as her credits, or rather, to her shame, that she wrote the script. Kirsten Dunst scarcely, says sentences of more than a dozen words. The film is notable for its lack of conversation, instead, the viewer is supposed to be satisfied with scene after scene of pretty settings.
Coppola has committed the cardinal Hollywood sin of believing that special effects will make up for plot, or indeed, dialogue. Coppola, being a Hollywood princess, undoubtedly, felt an affinity for the doomed French Queen and sought to make her "relevant" to a modern teen audience. She attempts to do this by playing modern American pop songs in 18th Century French settings. Never mind the lapses in historical veracity, viewers find, for instance, that Marie Antoinette spoke with an American accent, or even good taste,the aim is to show Marie Antoinette as a misunderstood teen who rebelled against the constrictions of court life.
The film is structurally weak, being episodic, in character, of scenes from the life of Marie Antoinette with no connection to contemporary French events. There is no attempt to explore why the French people hated her so much. How on Earth did Coppola ever think that she could make a film about Marie Antoinette and ignore critical events such as the Affair of the Necklace ? - an event that destroyed Marie Antoinette's credibility with the French people - and yet, Coppola achieves it. It is like making a film about President Nixon and not mentioning Watergate.
Having filled the film with pap, Coppola suddenly finds that she has no time left to show the crucial events of Marie Antoinette's life - the Revolution, the flight to Varennes, the deposition of the monarchy, the execution of her husband and her own trial and execution.
The film is utterly useless to anyone who wishes to learn anything about Marie Antoinette's life.
No wonder Coppola fled when the audience at the Cannes Film Festival booed at the premiere of the film.
This film is a disgrace.
The viewer is urged to watch instead Van Dyke's superb 1938 production of "Marie Antoinette", starring the incomparable Norma Shearer, for a thrilling account of Marie Antoinette's life and Shyer's 2001 production of "The Affair of the Necklace", starring Hilary Swank, for a dramatic account of the event that was to lead to the downfall of Marie Antoinette, as well as Scola's 1982 production of "La Nuit de Varennes", starring Harvey Keitel, for an absorbing account of the flight to Varennes.
Avoid Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" like the plague.