Marie Antoinette *
Sofia Coppola, 2006
US/France
@ home on DVD

I was surprised a bit by my repulsion toward this film. At no specific point is it aesthetically offensive, or less than charming, but the blinkered view of life at Versailles, and the justification that the film didn't need to encompass anything outside the palace since the subject's life didn't either, seem unwholesome. The only direct critique of her incurious ignorance comes in the form of Steve Coogan, brilliant as usual, her advisor and confidant who makes a futile attempt at keeping her abreast of international affairs.

Sofia Coppola and her supporters certainly have a point about the dearth of female filmmakers and film subjects, but why must she evoke sympathy for such vapid, boring young women? In one of the reviews I read it was suggested that Wes Anderson escapes similar criticism because he's male, and thus his bored and privileged men are not given a second thought, but certainly with The Darjeeling Limited if not prior he's fairly self-critical, assuming he's not totally dissimilar to his characters.

Perhaps it's just that I have a distaste for lavish films about the hassles of aristocracy (see Visconti's The Leopard, for instance), but now (or two years ago) more than ever seems an odd time to attempt to restore the reputation of a cruelly incompetent and neglectful ruler, damning her own country while money is being spent on a war abroad. I mean, isn't the queen pretty much just "clearing brush" at her second home for most of the second half of the movie? I can imagine someone shipping a framed edition of the Rousseau passage she quotes down to Crawford, Texas as a gift to our current out-of-touch leader.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Rob Nelson review