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Movie Reviews
Marie Antoinette
By Al Kratina
Nov 13, 2006 - 10:52:35 AM

Marie Antoinette

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Steve Coogan, Molly Shannon

Directed by: Sofia Coppola

Written by: Sofia Coppola
Produced by: Sofia Coppola, Ross Katz

Genres: Drama, Period Piece

Release Date: October 20

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Distributors: Columbia Pictures

Running Time: 123 min.

I would probably like this movie, if I weren't so annoyed. However, it's difficult to watch a movie about a spoiled, oblivious rich girl when the movie itself appears to be made by a spoiled, oblivious rich girl. I suppose director Sofia Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, would have the best insight into that particular world, making her portrait of a Marie Antoinette lost and oblivious in a world of decadence and excess an accurate one, but it seems narcissistic and self-absorbed. Which, I suppose helps feed into the film, as it's about narcissism and self-absorption, and maybe this whole exercise is like a snake eating its own tale while dressed in Manolo Blahnik. God, this is making my head hurt. But as annoying as it is, the film is still quite an interesting exercise.

Marie Antoinette is, of course, a period piece, set just prior to the French Revolution. But as opposed to stifling itself with the details of verisimilitude, the film retains the trappings of the time, and the substance of the story, but everything else is anachronistically imported from teen movies and Sofia Coppola's iTunes playlist. The soundtrack is the kind of hip that everyone will be embarrassed about in 2 years, and the behavior and the language of the characters are a strange mix of The Breakfast Club and Robert Altman, improvisationally catty and annoying, and the whole point of the picture seems to be that the French Court was like high school. Kirsten Dunst plays Marie Antoinette, in a reasonably acceptable casting choice that becomes more so compared with the rest of the cast, which seems to be entirely composed of people Coppola goes bowling with. Jason Schwartzman, her cousin, plays Louis the 16th, which is odd, Molly Shannon plays Victoire, which is distracting, and Rip Torn plays Louis the 15th, which is insanity bordering on treason. Still, all handle their roles surprisingly well, especially the always hilarious Steve Coogan as Ambassador Mercy, and after the initial shock of seeing the guy from Freddie Got Fingered pretending to be the King of France, things settle into their rhythm fairly quickly.

What's most interesting about Marie Antoinette is that the stylistic and behavioral anachronisms are jarring not because they’re not what we expect the period to be like, but rather because that's not what we expect a period piece to be like. This is reinforced by Coppola's insistence on avoiding the staid, formal style of most period films, relying instead on a hand held camera and an almost cinema-verite feel. In fact, everything about this film is atypical, from the casting to the music, and the film boldly departs from convention, predictability, and, of course, being taken seriously in any form whatsoever. Sadly, that's the price you pay for putting The Strokes on your soundtrack.

Rating: 7 on 10

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