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entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
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Queen of Fashion...
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by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B+ Rated PG-13 123 min
For the most part, Sophia Coppola’s adaptation of Anton Greene’s acclaimed biography Marie Antoinette effectively represents her stated vision of this work as her final film in her trilogy about young women coming of age under difficult circumstances. Her previous films in the trilogy include The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. Although their stories are quite different, the hook of the premises involve young women on journeys of discovery and transition.
Sophia uses long portrait stills of Kristen Dunst as Marie Antoinette to make a strong statement. She depicts the lavish surroundings of rich food and expensive accoutrements to convey the lopsided dichotomy between the spoiled aristocrats of the royal family and the starving masses. The film’s major flaw is, Sophia does not present a mosaic of the other side–the suffering prolateriat, who rose up in rebellion against the apathy of the royal family as the French Revolution.
Still, Sophia’s meticulously staged multidimensional scenes are rich with detail, like impressionist paintings. She characterizes the young Versailles courtiers as hedonists--pampered aristocrats, who spend all their time primping, drinking, eating, gossiping, and engaging in palace intrigue. Marie Antoinette was only a teenager when her mother shipped her off to France in an arranged marriage to Prince Louis XVI, who was only 15 years old. In effect, she was sold into white slavery to form an alliance between France and Austria.
Once Marie arrived on French soil, she was stripped of her Austrian clothes and given a lavish queen’s wardrobe. She even had to give up her precious Pug dog. “You can have plenty of French dogs,” she was told. For Marie, it was like she landed on an alien planet. Everything about the French royal palace was steeped in pomp and formal tradition. Her job was to have sex with Louis and bear an heir to the throne, sealing the agreement between the two countries.
Ah yes, but Louis was clueless about sex and he lacked the basic skills to even know what to do. What’s worse, his sexual ineptness made him too nervous to perform, and their early marriage was unconsummated. Finally, Louis was counseled by a doctor, and told to put the “key in the lock,” which gave him a general idea how to have sex. Gradually, as Marie and Louis got to know one another, they bonded and had sex, producing a girl. No worries, at least the king knew they had finally had sex.
Dunst portrays Marie full of wonder and mischief. She made friends with her staff, and they flit around the palace like typical teenage girls. She was not completely happy with her status, but she settled into a life of frivolity and mind numbing boredom.
Of course, the royal family was oblivious to the plight of the masses, and made no effort to ease their suffering. This was their downfall, as the revolution fomented beyond the reach of their ivory tower. Marie was hated by the masses for being a spend thrift and arrogant Austrian. She had no idea that her days were numbered as the sparks of the French Revolution erupted into a conflagration.
Jason Schwartz man portrays Louis with a welcome tongue-in-cheek flare. Man what a dud, but as Marie got to know him he had a certain charm that drew her to him. Rip Torn plays the bawdy King Louis with his prostitute mistress with whom he was always pawing and cuddling, much to the disgust of the courtiers.
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