Dryvetyme Onlyne

Marie Antoinette
Columbia Pictures/American Zoetrope
Written & Directed by: Sofia Coppola

Rating: 6.4

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes (rumored by some to be Solomon, that legendary king, wise man, and collector of wives from the Bible) tells us, “…Money answers every need.” (Ecclesiastes 10:19; JPS Tanakh) Having worked at two small private schools and been a part of other non-profit organizations, I’ve found that dealing with money on a regular basis can be a truly daunting task. No matter how secure and established a group’s vision, program, and/or five-year plan might be, if they money’s not there, nothing will ever get done (outside of scratching and scrambling for just enough money to keep the lights on and the merest of bills paid). Conversely, when a corporation of any orientation (religious, business, governmental, or otherwise) has in its hands a great deal of money, the results can bring great benefit, great damage, or, sometimes, great apathy. As another Jewish thinker once said, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…” (I Timothy 6:10; NRSV)

For you see – here’s a random admission you won’t find being made by many reviewers – I find budgets quite intriguing. Admittedly, meeting together with a group of people to decide what would be the best allocation of a group or institution’s resources sounds boring to mostly people; however, through my eyes, budgets are truly the way & means by which one can figure out someone else’s priorities. Do you want to know just what’s most important to people? Just take a look into where and how they’ve spent their money, whether it’s been a little or a lot of it. Ah, budgets… You’re ignored by some and exploited by others; no wonder people never really understand you.

Thus, I would imagine that Sofia Coppola might have chosen Marie Antoinette as the subject for her newest film for that very reason – no one really has ever understood her, for many of the same reasons that budgets don’t have many friends. Let’s engage in some comparisons: both budgets & Marie have been accused for the downfall of countries; both budgets & Marie been lambasted by the whims and opinions of the general populace; both budgets & Marie have been blamed for the downfall of national morality; and both budgets & Marie have been misinterpreted by historians for centuries. It’s quite uncanny actually – an actual historical figure and an economic abstraction that controls fiscal reality having so much in common, even down to how both the intellectual elites and commoners have developed such vast theories concerning their impact and importance. But thankfully, Marie is much more interesting than any budget could ever dream of being.

Sadly though, as a movie, Marie Antoinette isn’t nearly as fascinating and captivating as it could have been, much less as intriguing as the historical Marie Antoinette was. There are many bright spots throughout the film, enough where you want to keep watching to see what happens next, but the time lag in between the viewable scenes came to be almost interminable. The movie was too long (by about 20 minutes), the overt focus upon Marie’s budgetary whims & license became tiring (how many pairs of shoes do we have to see her buying?), and, as palatable & friendly as Ms. Coppola might want Marie to be, I don’t think that she had to turn her into a silly, young thing at every possible turn (why do I get the feeling that Marie wasn’t the flighty teenager she’s too often portrayed to be?). At times, I felt like I was on sensory overload – I felt burdened down with the expectations of what was supposed to be present in this film and engulfed by a flood of thoughts like, “There’s just too much going on here!”

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy watching the movie, as there are many reasons I would give for people to go out and view the film in the theater. The acting in the movie is quite proficient across the board, with Jason Schwartzman turning in a phenomenal performance as the socially- & sexually-awkward Louis XVI, and Kirsten Dunst portraying the multi-faceted main character (read: Ms. Coppola tried to have the viewer see Marie through way too many lenses) with remarkable grace and depth. The budget for this film must have been rather hefty (especially for what’s more aptly described as an ensemble cast), because the opulent & lavish combinations of scenery, shoes, dresses, hair, and accessories were astonishingly beautiful and were so throughout the film. And the soundtrack was outstanding – Ms. Coppola has developed a knack for choosing songs that speak ably for the characters.

Moreover, Marie Antoinette effectively depicts the gamut of intense societal juxtapositions and contradictions that the main character ran through early & often in her life as the Dauphine and then Queen of France. Look at it this way – she was a foreign-born girl who was married away at just 15, became Queen at 19, perpetually pressured to produce a male heir (the only kinds of children who count in monarchal societies), was the focus of nasty rumor mills, and was seen as the literal & figurative reason for France’s woes. In the end, the viewer finds out that they don’t mind being just a bit sympathetic towards the Queen – even with all of the money she obviously spent on shoes, clothes, Versailles décor, and similar things, it’s quite difficult to place all of France’s economic & sociopolitical woes onto one woman’s shoulders.

Nevertheless, the movie feels weighed down by the magnitude & scope of its implied purpose – it’s quite difficult to explain in a two-hour movie just why one can’t place all of France’s economic & sociopolitical woes onto Marie’s shoulders. It’s an admirable attempt, but I came away from the theater feeling like I’d just watched an excellent & well-produced bit of historical hagiography. Can a two-hour movie, based upon a recently-released & historically-based biographical novel, really dispel the public opinion (French or otherwise) that swells against Queen Marie? Can putting a beautiful actress’s face to the story of the French Revolution really be a credible piece of anti-history? And, if we’re supposed to feel sorry for Marie in the face of the coming Revolution, why do we only see her face the thronging masses for mere seconds? Other issues I had with the film: the timeline is too heavily focused upon Marie’s first few years in France; there is this strange maternal segue that has Marie, her children, and her mistresses living an idyllic & detached existence in the French countryside (do we really need to see these aristocrats reading Rousseau?); and the lead-up to the Revolution (which we never really see) is quite hurried & forced. Thus, even without delving into the historical inaccuracies present in the film, Marie Antoinette just feels too clumsy & unwieldy in its sympathetic depiction of the woman’s life.

So, here’s the question – was Ms. Coppola so focused on finding room in the budget for specially-designed Manolo Blahnik shoes for Marie & her mistresses that she neglected to spend more time in the editing room? Is this all simply a case that Ms. Coppola simply tried too hard with this picture and was overwhelmed by the potential of what might have been? Now, admittedly, one of the cardinal sins of reviewing is to use the word “potential,” because the word typically is surrounded by an extremely negative connotation and is used to ward people away from the stench of the product being reviewed. Cries of “Potential!” can plague and doom a movie or album release because people enter the experience with such a heightened level of expectation, only to be let down rather harshly by what they see or hear. I wish that more attention had been paid to the ebb & flow of the scene changes – sudden shifts & quirky transitions worked wonders in days-long timeline of Lost In Translation, but are cause for confusion in the decades-long timeline of Marie Antoinette.

Hence, I feel torn with this movie. Did I like it? Yes. Would I see it again? Yes. Were there many things I thought were out-of-place and peculiar? Yes. Do I think that this film could have been better than it was? Yes. Do I think that some themes & concepts felt more-than-a-bit forced? Yes. But do I think you should go see it? Absolutely – just be prepared to scratch your head in wonder on more than one occasion.