Marie Antoinette film review

certificate_12A

MARIE ANTOINETTE

When a film about the notorious 18th century French queen opens to the angular sound of post punk pioneers Gang Of Four, it's clear this is no conventional biopic. Since breaking with convention is what marked Marie Antoinette's reign, it is perhaps more in keeping than appears at first glance. But whereas Antoinette was a forthright, dynamic personality, Sofia Coppola's film about her is terminally flaccid.

It's as though the writer and director has deliberately avoided dwelling on any of the factors that made Antoinette such a contentious and colourful figure. Instead we see her mindlessly whiling away her time at the palace at Versailles under the critical scrutiny of French courtiers wary of their Austrian interloper.

Coppola has established a certain style with her films, which move at a glacial pace and are painstakingly spare in action and dialogue. But while that approach worked successfully with the small scale of her previous ventures, the epic life of Marie Antoinette requires a fuller, more disciplined tack. The vagueness of Coppola's narrative is as frustrating as it is inconclusive, to the point where it is hard to come away with any true insight into what Antoinette was like.

This abstract stance extends to the performances. The insipid Kirsten Dunst suggests nothing to explain why Antoinette was such a forceful, radical queen while the casting of Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI is plain wrong. As an offbeat, comic actor he is endearing, but as a commanding royal presence he lacks stature. By casting her cousin, Coppola has done neither Schwartzman nor her film any favours. Though it's hardly the first time the Coppolas nepotistic casting has backfired, as Sofia herself is all too well aware.

The director explained that she set out to make it seem as though we were in that time rather than looking back, which is somewhat at odds with a soundtrack that includes New Order and Adam And The Ants. The juxtaposition did however offer some striking moments, none more so than a lavish ball scene with beautifully costumed guests dancing to Siouxsie And The Banshees' Hong Kong Garden. Also Coppola's quest for authenticity is undermined by the appearance of a contemporary sneaker in a montage sequence of shoes.