UK Release: 20th October 2006
Director Sofia Coppola’s modernist take on the life of the infamous 18th-century monarch who said “let them eat cake” plays like an extended 1980s pop video.
Although based on Antonia Fraser’s respected biography, hard fact gives way to a stylised portrait of the naive 14-year-old Austrian princess (a coquettish Kirsten Dunst) as she heads to Versailles to marry the shy Dauphin (a blank Jason Schwartzman). The seven years it took before the consummation of her marriage meant navigating ruthless court protocol, manners and diplomacy, and it’s the pressures of privilege that interest Coppola more than any revolutionary incident.
Historical authenticity is undercut further by bursts of anachronistic pop music (including a masked rave to Siouxsie and the Banshees’s Hong Kong Garden). The film is ravishing to look at, thanks to the production team’s unprecedented access to Versailles, but its frothy charm eventually wears thin.
***
UK cinema certificate 12A
Running time 122mins
Review by Alan Jones
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