Half a masterpiece – so much of this film is brilliant: the costumes, sets, feel of it, casting, acting; it captures the sense of Versailles more than any film I’ve seen - Coppola’s approach of making it like a high school for rich bitches seems totally appropriate, with du Barry the slutty girlfriend of the most popular person, Rose Byrne the wild party girl the most popular in school, etc.
But when I say half a masterpiece I mean that literally- the film should be cut in half. There is so much repetition and scenes go on too long it eventually gets wearying (I know Coppola wants to show it is wearying but you can make wearying-ness interesting). For instance there are two scenes where the Austrian ambassador tells Marie she has to talk to du Barry, and about four scenes of Louis XVI not wanting to have sex with his wife when one would have done and about four scenes of the two of them making stilted conversation at the table when again one or two would have done.
And Coppola misses the great opportunity of the final months at Versailles – I don’t mind so much she left out Marie’s escape and execution (the two things most people who tell stories of her life normally fix on, especially as the escape was masterminded by her lover Fersen) because that’s the story she chose to tell, but there could have been more of the creepiness and violence of the revolution affecting life at Versailles – it’s like Coppola is skilled at the school stuff but not when the school comes under attack.
She also kind of cheats – having made the decision to tell it from Marie’s POV she then cuts away a few times to scenes without her (she did the same thing in The Virgin Suicides).
OK to take a walk on the sunny side, Kirsten Dunst is perfect as the princess, not a bad person, someone who tries her best, but a bit of an idiot (by the end of the film she’s a more mature idiot but still an idiot), would have made a great powerless monarch (it’s as if Posh Spice was made queen of France) but probably deserved to have her head chopped off. Rose Byrne, who normally I’m not a fan of and who seems to get work mostly because directors become enamoured of her, is perfect as Marie’s party girl friend, just like a dopey immensely pleased with her self Bondi idiot (which from all accounts Rose is not but she’d certainly know a bunch – this is her best ever work, maybe she needs to make more movies with people who don’t fall in love with her); she also gets the film’s two best lines, “your hair what’s happening with that” and “I love the country” – both of which convey why the French revolution happened as much as any other lines.
Asia Argento is great as the trashy du Barry as is Marianne Faithfull as the done-a-lot-of-living Empress, Rip Torn as the lecherous king, Jason Schwarztmann as the nerdy totally unqualified Louis, Danny Huston as the virile brother, the girl who played Marie’s dopey friend, Judy Davis as the I-really-don’t-like-doing-this-job noblewoman, Steve Coogan as the ambassador. So much of this film is wonderful – if only the writer-director had used a co-writer.
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