MARIE ANTOINETTE Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Columbia Pictures
Grade: B+
Directed by: Sofia Coppola
Written By: Sofia Coppola, based on Antonio Fraser’s biography “Marie Antoinette: The Journey.”
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn, Judy Davis,
Asia Argento, Marianne Faithful, Danny Huston, Molly Shannon
Screened at:
Opens: October 20, 2006 Who needs Viagra? All you have to know is what to eat for breakfast. This is one of the customs of the French court that Marie Antoinette had to learn. Because for seven years she had not produced a child-heir, a doctor is called in with nutritional advice, and, though France had not yet gone through a feminist phase, the man is appropriately considered to be at fault. If only he had Cheerios in the morning instead of French toast! King Louis XVI must have changed his early morning diet, because eventually he and his queen had two babies that survived, though one might have been the offspring of a Swedish count–or the iceman. “Marie Antoinette” is Sofia Coppola’s Cliff Notes targeted at least in part to an audience of young women, even teens who, in the absence of contemporary pop music in a story taking place in the Eighteenth Century would simply not show up at the multiplex. The misunderstood monarch would die by the national razor, an execution that was not shown as the movie ends at the start of her attempted escape from Versailles to Verennes. Marie may not have been an early version of Princess Diana, but she was just as adorable–which makes one wonder why she (like Diana) could not drive her husband mad with desire. This pic, which unlike Ms. Coppola’s breakthrough story of another outsider whose life is “Lost in Translation,” has little dialogue and only the bare outline of a plot despite its twenty-three years’ time frame. Based to a fair degree on the actual daily lives of people in the French Court in the late 1700's, “Marie Antoinette” focuses on the lethargic rounds of malicious gossip that make life interesting inside the Versailles palace in the absence of TV and radio. Some of that gossip would have been directed at the title character, given that she is an outsider, a sacher torte in the home of petit fours. More talk would center on the dalliance of King Louis XV with his mistress Mme duBarry–who is hated by everyone but the aging monarch. Still more might have been evoked from an affair (which may never have happened) between Marie and a wan Swedish count. But in a culture where the super-rich do not have Playstation or even the chance of a needle-sharp, hot shower in which to sing and let off steam, gossip becomes the boob tube of the advantaged. The story is filmed in and around Versailles, obviously endowed with the permission of the French government. In Coppola’s view, the life of the court is not all it’s cracked up to be; in fact, most of the women in the movie audience may not want to exchange places with Marie (Kirsten Dunst). From the time she crosses the Austrian border into France, she is stripped of all her clothing, because nothing foreign is to be allowed in France, not even her beloved pug. On the day she marries the future King Louis XVI (Jason Schwarzman), she and he are put to bed before an audience of courtiers including the bishop, some with smirks on their faces as the bed’s curtain is drawn. “Nothing happened,” is the term that spread throughout the palace like wildfire, a disaster when Marie’s childless condition persists into the years. Still, when she arises in the morning before an army of women led by the Comtesse de Noailles (Judy Davis in her signature role of compulsively neurotic advice-giver), she is dressed and escorted to the dining area where she and her husband are fully costumed right up to the hats on their heads. About those troubles in bed. The king appears terrified by the woman. He pulls the sheets over his head looking straight up at the ceiling though his bride hovers close to him and, following the advice of the Austrian ambassador (the always wonderful Steve Coogan) with whom Marie has rapport, she cuddles up to her man stating that she’s cold. “Do you want another blanket?” is the reply, which makes one wonder to this very day whether heads of state know anything about anything. Virtually nothing political is discussed in the movie. There is just some mumbling about rebellions in Poland, and, later, whether money should be sent to America to help in that country’s revolution against France’s enemy, England. “Marie Antoinette” stands out, however, as a lavish costume drama filled with the most expensive threads seen on the screen this year or perhaps any other, jewelry to die for, and enough shoes to give Imelda Marcos a wet dream. Dunst looks gorgeous, but is given relatively little to say, perhaps a marketing strategy to avoid any of the complex dialogue that would inhibit commerce at the box office. Lance Acord does marvels behind the camera, making Versailles look more attractive than it does in actuality–a kind of lensing that is the diametrical opposite to the washed-out colors that cinematographer Tom Stern gave us in “Flags of our Fathers.” Rip Torn gives a ripping performance as the lusty, appetitive King Louis XV, his love for life given impetus by his mistress played by Asia Argento, while operatic airs compete with contempo tunes to lend appealing, if prochronistic, diversity to the proceedings. Rated PG-13. 123 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
