User reviews

Kirsten Dunst is "Marie Antoinette" in this anachronistic 2006 film directed by Sofia Coppola. The other stars include Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn, Judy Davis, Marianne Faithful and Molly Shannon.

I can only guess that the reason for making this film was to show a teenage Queen of France cavorting with her girlfriends and shopping until she dropped while remaining oblivious to the plight and unhappiness of the French people. In actuality, that's probably pretty close to the truth about this historical figure. Norma Shearer was very good as Marie Antoinette, but she wasn't a kid. I think this version had the right idea. The only thing Coppola omitted was Marie's story, so the movie is instead about the above-mentioned teen partying, shopping, being unfaithful, wandering the grounds, while giving us a look at royal tradition, gorgeous costumes and dazzling scenery. Little else.

Marie Antoinette's life was full of drama - her liaisons with Axel von Fersen, the Affair of the Necklace, her husband's medical problem which prevented the couple from having children for so long, the revolution, the family being taken to prison, and the guillotine. Some of this is touched on or mentioned in passing; most of it is left out. There are five exciting minutes or so toward the end of the film.

In a way, it's a shame, because this film could have given us great insight into Marie Antoinette by having a very young woman play the Queen as these events swirled around her. But in order to do that, characters would have to have been developed, and there didn't seem to be any interest in that. If you love color, beautiful costumes and scenery, this is the film for you. Don't bother if you're looking for any kind of content; like the vacuous queen, there's no there there.

I have seen this film yesterday after a lot of hype up and waiting since in my little town everything comes out a month after the release date. I was looking forward to seeing this movie..a lot. But I must say that the trailers I had seen and the film have a completely different feeling. This isn't a bad film but I think that it well get a lot of criticism for not being historically accurate, not serious enough, being too long, being 'unfinished'... but those are not he bad points of this movie. The style is original and Sofia Coppola succeeds at showing Marie Antoinette's personal side. Her suffering through gossip and humiliation by her husbands lack of 'interest' in her etc. She succeeds in showing Marie Antoinette as a naive girl in the beginning..who hugs her first lady, cries at parting with her dog and announcing that the morning ceremonials are ridiculous. We see Marie Antoinette at the beginning trying to fit in with the strict life at Versailles but further on it's clear that with the gossip following her she stops caring and starts to have fun her own way which leads to her ruin. The negative points of the film is that Sofia Coppola uses the same techniques, the same scenes through out the movie. The trying on of shoes, the hairdressing, the patisserie dishes and the champagne. We see Marie Antoinette frolicking around in the grass too many times. Sofia Coppola apparently tried to show a girl out of touch with reality who lives just to have fun..to escape the wagging tongues of Versailles. But if that was her point the film should've ended long before. This is a biography of Marie Antoinette...even though not a completely serious or historically accurate one...but if Sofia Coppola is trying to show this French queens personality and human side then I can assure you there was more to her than the frilly lace, the satin shoe, the bakery department and the champagne. Marie-Antoinette was a mother who cared about her children and was involved with them..though we hardly we see this in the film except the sequence of her and her daughter on the farm. The relationship and the feelings she had for her husband aren't very clear and his for her aren't very much elucidated. This is a visually beautiful film but I think Sofia Coppola could've delved deeper into this rich personality. In the end you're left with the impression of stepping out from a hazy rose petal fragile dream that from someones tumultuous life. But a dream that's still worth seeing.

Something you should know about this movie before you see it is that it does NOT attempt to be historically accurate. In fact, many scenes were purposely "sabotaged" with anachronisms to remind us that this is not a historical biography; instead it's meant to be a parable for the modern world.

If I had known that, I might have enjoyed the movie instead of grinding my popcorn with searing hatred through most of it.

Most noticeably, we're hit with a very non-18th century soundtrack: Adam Ant, Siouxie & the Banshees, The Cure, New Order, Bow Wow Wow, etc. And it's not just atmospheric background music either. There's actually a ballroom scene where they're rockin out to 80s post punk. If you don't realize the purpose of this odd juxtaposition, you might find yourself strangling the person sitting next to you.

Other anachronisms are more subtle but equally bizarre. When Marie Antoinette goes on her shoe shopping spree (to the tune of "I Want Candy", no less) if you look closely you'll see a pair of Converse hi tops in the picture. That's probably when it should sink in that the director is messin with you.

So the point of my review is to warn you NOT to expect any sort of historical accuracy, or even proper historical context. "Marie Antoinette" is more like the story of a 21st century teen growing up in a world of social jealousies, confused politics & cliquish loyalties. Only instead of the highschool hallways it happens in the Palace of Versailles.

That explains why the film "missed the opportunity" of chronicling the French Revolution, the royal flight to Austria, the subsequent trial for treason and other landmark events that you'd think would be covered in a film called "Marie Antoinette". But no, those weren't within the scope of the film.

In the IMDb "goofs" section, people have listed everything from "The real Marie Antoinette didn't wear underwear" to "18th century French forks should have 3 tines, not 4." Ooook. I'm sure those historians hated the movie like I did. But literally as I type this review, I'm hating the film less & less, and I might even try watching it a 2nd time. "Marie Antoinette" is definitely not your typical period piece, though the lavish visuals and big budget might lead you to believe it is. Approach it instead as an experimental indie type film with no rules, and you might really enjoy it.

For me it might be too late, but if you haven't seen this movie you should have fun if you know to expect a modern day story that's ironically set in the late 1700s. It's a good flick, although I question why it won at Cannes (actually, when you see the end credits and realize how much money this production brought to France, maybe there's no question why it won). Definitely do not expect an 18th century European history lesson. For that, stick with the excellent period piece "Amadeus" and the very entertaining 1961 Sophia Loren film set during the French Revolution, "Madame".

This movie was a solid 7/10. It wasn't groundbreaking but it was entertaining, Dunst was endearing and of course very visually pleasing. I find it amusing and rather telling how critical most of the reviewers are of the director and think if. Sofia was named Simon they would not be mentioning her so much. I enjoyed it and it taught me some new things about Marie Antoinette.

In 1768, Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) is a young princess in Austria. Her mother sets her to marry the future French king Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman). She is naive and inexperienced in the ways of the Versailles court. There is King Louis XV of France (Rip Torn), his mistress Madame du Barry (Asia Argento), and Comtesse de Noailles (Judy Davis). The Dauphin is distant and Marie struggles to connect with him. They are not sexual and she's under pressure to give an heir to the throne.

Sofia Coppola delivers a bright, light Marie Antoinette. She's very modern. There is some nice tension as the pressure builds for a baby. The movie fades away after that as France falls into revolution. Dunst is better as the young teen more than the older queen. The movie has the costumes but the drama isn't always there.

I actually rather enjoyed the film. Beautiful art direction. Kirsten Dunst (luminously) portrays Marie Antoinette; a young soon-to-be queen, full of love and yet terribly flawed, a royal with nothing but her bloodline to offer France. The film offers a female perspective on what it must have been like to be a bargaining chip to maintain peace between 2 powerful countries. In the film, Marie Antoinette is not unlike many privileged and wealthy young people today; easily bored, constantly seeking distractions and amusements, and in desperate need of direction, attention, and affection. She is a young woman who appears to have held no real interest in politics--she simply wants to fulfill her duties as wife and mother. At heart, she is a "country girl" in many regards. She seems happiest in when in the country with nature and with children. It was insightful to see Marie Antoinette portrayed as a woman with foibles and weaknesses--in the framework of most histories of the French Revolution, she is painted as a conniving villainess. This movie offers a more human perspective on this period of time in history, and reminds the viewer that these two monarchs were just teenagers; terribly ill-equipped to manage the responsibility of ruling a country that was already deeply in debt. I appreciate the viewpoint of this film...it's a fresh portrait of the history of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The contemporary music mixed with classical reminds us that history can and will repeat itself. The films is a cautionary tale against allowing wealth-based leaders to override the needs of a struggling nation. Too much decadence pushed under the noses of the poor will only lead to a revolution.

This movie simply has no storyline. It's like glimpses of her life in France. The scene of having meal at the same dining table repeats over and over again like 10 times. Nothing propelled a story forward. The ending was just a quick wrap up. Nothing explained.

Based on the recent Marie-Antoinette biography by Antonia Fraser, Sofia Coppola's film focuses on the personal qualities of the character of Marie-Antoinette and thus participates in the character's historical rehabilitation. Antoinette is seen as a respectful loyal daughter, a loving mother, a patient wife, who had to withstand a flood of vindictive criticism since the moment she set foot in the French court. This depiction contrasts strongly with many prior representations of the character in film ("The Affair of the Necklace" for example), which show her as superficial, selfish and vain.

The visuals and auditory elements, which evoke a powerful image of 18th-century Versailles, are the movie's forte. And their effects linger in one's mind (or at least they did in mine) long after one's exit from the theater. As a budding art historian, I was stunned by the intensely lush visual spectacle the film has to offer: the pomp and circumstance of ritualized and regimented 18th-century Versailles. The semi-private world that Antoinette builds for herself to escape Versailles's codified, quasi-totalitarian atmosphere, is evoked through a sequence of fast-moving images of champagne-guzzling, beautifully-decorated cake-eating, and Manolo Blahnik shoe buying. Thus Antoinette's fantasy world is likened to a world recognizable to you, me and Carrie Bradshaw. Some people may scoff at this 21st century world transposed to an earlier time. But as the center of the world in 18th-century Europe, Marie-Antoinette's "secret Versailles" would certainly have been as "hip" as this, and Coppola has found effective means through sound and image by which to make this hipness accessible.

The story zooms in on the character of Marie-Antoinette, played by a ravishing Kirsten Dunst, who arrives at Versailles at the tender age of 14, to become queen of France a mere 5 years later. Coppola emphasizes the loneliness of Antoinette throughout the film: most important is her alienation from the French court by the fact that she is a foreigner (something that made her a scapegoat for all of France's problems during the 1780's). Her powerlessness to "fit in" is emphasized also through her sexual alienation from her socially-awkward husband (played by Jason Schwartzmann), her mother's chidings that she has not yet produced an heir to the French throne (and thereby has not secured Austria's political place in Europe), and the bitchy gossip that goes on behind her back at court.

Marie-Antoinette is depicted as an intensely personable, friendly and playful person. Coppola fashions a Marie-Antoinette who is a dutiful daughter, a patient wife to Louis (who eventually overcomes his shyness and becomes a loving and protective husband and father), and a caring and tender mother. She is shown as both bold and humble, two qualities which had quasi-miraculous effects on both the court and the angry mob, as is shown in some of the film's most touching moments.

Equipped with these "essential" personal qualities, the charges traditionally made against Marie-Antoinette fade completely. It is precisely Antoinette's ill-fated attempt at fitting into French court society that causes her escape into a world of idle futility and libertinage. Her escape into the world of "playing shepherdess" in her pleasure-house of Le Hameau is shown not as a silly escape from responsibility but as the simple human need to be surrounded by the natural world. This place appears to us as it does to Antoinette: as a refuge from the backbiting, totalitarian regime of Versailles. Even the legendary "let them eat cake" statement allegedly made by Marie-Antoinette is discarded as fiction.

There is almost no place in the film for the 18th-century reality as it existed outside the bubble-like world of Versailles. This is not the movie's purpose. The end of the film is a bit abrupt: the last image shows the royal family heading to Paris to be imprisoned in the building of the Conciergerie. There is no mention of the guillotine anywhere, which again can seem surprising, but which shows that Coppola deliberately tried to eschew stereotypes and do something different. And it is all to her credit.

Sophia Coppola really seems to know how to ruin a potentially great movie concept. Marie Antoinette is a fascinating figure in European history and one would expect the movie to account for at least a few interesting things that happened when she came to France to live with the prince. What we see is another sugarcoated Hollywood movie which is pretty much exactly like those teen highschool movies where rich young girls gossip, obsess with fashion and popularity etc. The only difference here are the costumes and the fact that not all the women in this movie are as young.

To top it off, the soundtrack...well, let me first put it this way, as a stand alone compilation, it's terrific to listen to but the way the modern tunes and songs have been incorporated in the sequences looks ill fit. It looks like a the characters have gone to a current day costume party rather than a movie of the period. Moreover, Coppola fails to draw the body language and nuances of the French culture from her actors. Not once does one get the impression that this is a story about France. As a result of bad direction and terrible writing, the performances of the actors suffer even though Kirsten Dunst does the best she could with the given material.

The director portrays Antoinette as naive and frivolous. There is no mention of her historical accomplishments or failures. Now it isn't an easy task to convincingly tell the story of a historical figure in two hours but Coppola focuses the entire two hours on Antoinette being fascinated by her riches and partying around. A competent director and writer could have done so much more with the storytelling. In the current case, only near the very end things start to move along but here too the story speeds up at such a superfast pace that the ending is extremely abrupt and contrived.

'Marie Antoinette' is like a bad birthday present that is wrapped beautifully but once unwrapped, the gift itself is far from satisfactory.

I like what this film was trying to do, in terms of rethinking the way we remember and treat marie Antoinette, as the villain who said "let them eat cake" and not as a real human, doing what seemed right to her. However, I don't actually like this film, for my many reasons, the worst of which being pacing.

I don't mind a slow film with lots of shots of very little that help establish emotion and tone, however this film featured many long shots of large buildings and halways, with little emotion, to indicate a grand, formal atmosphere that just make the film really boring.

The second problem I have is aesthetically this film won't commit, with some scenes being set to peruod accurate irritating music and ooccasionally others being shot to upbeat modern pop songs. This leads to every pop music scene feeling strange and out of place.

On a similar note, the film can't decide ehich language it's using, with some people speaking english, some english with american accents, some english with obviously fake posh accents, some people french and occasionally people saying french phrases in an american accent, which is just wierd.

Kudos for settings and costuming. That's where it ends. Actually, Kirsten did do a good job of portraying a flighty, self-absorbed young girl who is is not really cut out for the serious responsibilities of Queenship. Her transformation into a Queenly older woman, however, is far too swift, making it unbelievable. For me, the greatest irritation comes from the musical score. What brilliant person came up with the idea of using very modern music in an 18th Century historical film? It was always jarring, making the scene laughable. There are definitely better made Marie Antoinette films out there, I have no doubt.

I had high hopes for this one since I love reading biographies. Granted that not everything is accurate nor can be fit into a movie we can only make do with what is presented in this case an overlong rock and roll video that has pretty sets and costumes. Marie Antionette came off a little slow and boring though life in the French Court and it's protocols were very amusing to quote MA in the dressing scene "This is ridiculous." Sofia Coppola could've have focused a little more on MA's loneliness in a lousy marriage and the court intrigues and a little less on the extravagant shopping sprees. What is surprising is the infamous Necklace Affair wasn't even included since most modern historians agree MA was innocent from that scandal. Acting wise Kirsten Dunst pulled off a difficult job of playing a childlike queen upfront but a woman who suffered humiliation behind the scenes however it is Rose Byrne who stole the show (along with the sets, costumes and the yummy cakes) as the Duchesse de Polignac a role she plays with believable aplomb. Asia Argento looked a little old for Madame Du Barry and Mary Nighy is nice as the Princesse Lamballe, another unfortunate victim of the Revolution. Jason Shwartzman plays a rather stiff Louis XVI while Jamie Dorman is hot as Count Axel Fersen. Everyone else like Judy Davis, Shirley Henderson and Molly Shannon had nothing to do but gossip and look silly. Marianne Faithful floored me with her regal Maria Therese. In the end the movie was a little shallow and the rock and roll soundtrack seemed out of place. It was like watching a 80's music video.

Having trashed two of the three movies Sofia Coppola has directed (I didn't see Lick the Star, yuck!) what made me think I'd enjoy Marie Antoinette? I'm old and worse yet, a male. Certainly not the demographic Marie Antoinette is aimed at, so I found when I ventured out to my local Cineplex to check out Ms. Coppola's 4th go at directing. I figured to use the theater as my personal screening-room on a Friday at noon. Oops! It was a school holiday and I entered one of the smaller of the 14 "theaters" into a crowd of a dozen or so chatting high school girls. I had mistakenly arrived 20 minutes early so I had an opportunity to eavesdrop on their discussion concerning the ethics paper they were required to write and what they were considering giving up for a week as required by their class. These must have been students at the nearby parochial high school. What public high school has ethic courses? They seemed a perfect audience for a film on Marie Antoinette. The theater continued to fill as film time approached. It filled to approximately ¾ capacity and I was, as best as I could determine, the only male person of my gender.

So why did I think I'd enjoy a film by a director whose films seemed directed by a person with a spoiled child's view of the world? Well, what I'd read about Marie Antoinette resonated close enough with Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge which blew me away. "Lavish imagery and a daring soundtrack set this film apart from most period dramas; in fact, style complete takes precedence over plot and character development in Coppola's vision of the doomed queen" should sound familiar to Moulin Rouge fans.

Well, as soon as the black and shocking pink credits showed up to the sound of The Gang of Four's "Natural's Not In It" I knew I was in the right place. Kirsten Dunst was, in my opinion, a perfect choice. She's beautiful but not too beautiful. She has an aura of mischievousness which worked from start to finish. Ms. Dunst, at the young age of 24 or so, already has a long career in Hollywood. And she was only one of many. From Marianne Faithful, to Judy Davis, to Rip Torn, to Jason Schwartzman, to Asia Argento, to many others perfectly cast.

For me, the film never dragged or bogged down. The sets were beautiful. (What can you say about Versailles and the French countryside?) The food was reminiscent to me of Wayne Thiebaud paintings, but more colorful. The costumes, the music, added to the sense of decadence I think the film aimed for.

Yet Marie Antoinette's character never seemed decadent. Ms. Dunst's openness and delight in all presented to her, came across. Despite her loss of freedom and the difficulty in eventually becoming the Queen of France she was able to "Party On!"

What made the film, for me, exceptional, was how Sofia Coppola was able to make both Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI living, breathing, human beings, rather than grotesqueries. I was moved several times by their connection or lack of the same.

There is a lot to see, hear and experience in Marie Antoinette. It is an accomplished and stimulating cinematic experience. I shall view it as much as I am able. This film has prompted me to review both The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. The world is certainly in need of feminine perspective and Sofia Coppola has made a statement that she has the potential to be a very Great talent.

Pardon my verbosity.

and when she gets there, she gets bored, gossips, reads Rousseau, and has beach-blanket pot parties in Amadeus outfits. I did like the music, there is one inspired masked ball and a good "watch the sun rise" scene - the strength of this film is its connection to high school culture, seen through the eyes of a sweet, utterly conventional and finally boring teenage girl, projected from the California suburbs onto 18th century France. This is obviously also the film's weakness: this movie is a beautiful, expensive still life that knows nothing at all about French history, Europe, the Revolution, the Bourbons, how the ancien regime worked, how incompetent wars and not Marie Antoinette's Imelda-Marcos-like shoe fetish ran up the debt, about the conflict in North America with England and Spain, about how leading members of French government actually had brains - the films displays a nitwit, decadent, wig-loving, golden-furniture France as though seen by a France-hater in the Bush administration. As my brother pointed out, the movie also blew the subject of a potentially great movie, which is Marie Antoinette's inspired, sometimes brilliant defense of herself at her later trial. Trying to learn about what happened to the French court from this film is like trying to learn about American corporate culture by watching J.R Ewing's 30 second business deals at the Cattlemen's Club on Dallas. Well sure, politics wasn't the subject of the movie, but why is the "chick stuff" buried in diamonds and champagne? That makes these women seem way less tough and intelligent than they actually were in the bloody contact sport of French court politics. As an American watching this in Paris I was struck by the film's lack of historical, political, and cultural sophistication, in which Dunst is in every single frame and it's all one gigantic royal slumber party until the peasants show up in an illiterate wordless mass baying for bread and blood and shaking their satanic harvesting tools. Ouch: The film makes the most sense as a weird allegory of Hollywood inbreeding.

i know some people have said that it is entirely eye candy (and what amazing eye candy at that) but it actually does an artful adaptation of the book, which i read before seeing the film. it includes many of the important, beautiful, and sad parts of the book without getting bogged down with all the particulars and names like many of the period movies do. the soundtrack is great, a clever blend of 18th century and modern...the parts are well acted and the American accents rarely detract. If you want a historical account of her life, read the book...if you want Versailles and Marie Antoinette brought to life in a heart-breakingly beautiful fashion, go see this film...it is truly one of the most visually stunning movies i have ever seen.

Marie Antoinette,was nominated this year for a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. In all reality, this was a ridiculous and laughable attempt at "Americanizing" the French aristocracy. Starring the crisp Kirsten Dunst, and questionably casted Jason Schwartzman, Marie Antoinette portrays aristocracy and the french revolution as somewhat of a hip music video. Fortunately, Sofia Coppola lends very competent directing, by creating fascinating cinematography to save the film from total disillusionment. Lack of accents diminishes the painstaking role of authenticity, not withstanding the casting of Texas drawled Rip Torn as King Louis XV. Just think, I actually waited in line four hours to view this film at this year's Cannes Film Festival, to be disappointed. How disconcerting is that??

Coppola does manage to evoke the feeling of the 18th century way of life for royalty in Versailles. Living in huge palaces with gilded furniture, being waited on hand and foot, and never really worrying about anything was life in Versailles. Gossip, gambling, drinking and coke were also some of the other, more sinful indulgent pleasures the people of Versailles used to escape their miserable lives. Being married to the young Louis XV, Marie Antoinette is a fourteen year old virgin, pushed into this marriage to better the Franco-Austrian relations at the time. Coppola does invigorate the sense of loneliness and alienation Antoinette endured during her stay in France, due to both her naiveness and the fact that she was Austrian. Becoming the queen of France only 5 years later, Marie Antoinette drives herself further away, as she begins to cater deeper to the royal French treatment, it took so long to become accustomed to in the first place.

Lavished with beautiful set design, exuberant costumes and exotic pastries this failure as a film will be sure to gather up Oscars in those categories, bereft of any other substance. I do have to admit that had Coppola taken herself less seriously in this attempt, the film would have been more enjoyable. Baz Lurman knew what he was doing in his modern rendition of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, never taking himself too seriously. Maybe Papa Bear Francis Ford never had that DVD lying around the shelves at home. Those looking for an accurate historical depiction of Marie Antoinette look elsewhere, but those looking for an evening of eye candy and Strokes music blaring as Kirsten Dunst dances in a field of lilies, look nowhere else.