lily_handmaiden

By Cleolinda, from Troy in 15 Minutes. I use it because of Rose Byrne.

Okay, over Fall Break I went with Whitney and ABFG to see Marie Antoinette. It was a very weird movie. Very pretty, but very weird. Very, very pretty. Very, very weird.

Versailles is, of course, gorgeous. The costumes were just breathtakingly awesome. Despite everything, if I were, say, Rose Byrne, I would have agreed to do this weird-ass movie solely based on the awesomeness of the costumes.

The problem is... the movie is completely and totally carried by its prettiness. And it is just pretty enough to get you through two hours and fifteen minutes without wanting to scream.

The problem is, the movie has no real plot. It's based on a single biography of Marie Antoinette, and it seems to be trying to simply transfer a biography into film. This does not work well. A movie needs a central conflict. It can be about a person's life, okay, fine, but it needs to focus on something that carries through that person's life. If they had made the central theme of the movie Marie Antoinette's lack of privacy due to constant and complete exposure to the public eye, it would have worked much better. And at some points it seemed like they might do that, but didn't quite make the connection explicitly enough. I think part of this may have been the fault of some of the actors. One, in particular. Kirsten Dunst just could not carry this movie. I was withholding judgment on her, but... no. I am pretty well convinced that another actress could have done something better with that part. What made me decide this was that there is this part where Marie Antoinette gets yet another letter from her mother condemning her for not yet doing the sex with Louis and producing an heir, and she is leaning against a wall that somewhat matches her dress and she slides down the wall just barely holding the letter between her fingers, and it's a very pretty scene so you don't notice at first, but... her face is completely blank. I mean, there's blank because the character feels numb, and then there's just blank. Her eyes are dead. Her face is dead. There is nothing going on there. And I compared that in my head to the part of Pride and Prejudice '05 where Elizabeth has just refused Mr. Darcy and is feeling numb and terrible and she just stands and stares for a while and in that part of the movie, on Keira's face, you can see what Elizabeth is feeling. She gets it across. Kirsten does not do that, ever.

Also, they needed to pick a style of music and stick with it. They switched between classical and modern music seemingly randomly. The only pattern I can think of is that maybe the music went modern every time there was debauchery going on? The classical score was very pretty, and there were some parts where I liked the effect of the modern music, but they should have just gone with one of those styles all the way through. They also should have picked an accent and stuck with it. Everybody came with the accent they were born with and kept that accent. Marie Antoinette was American, the Duchess of Polignac was British, Marie Therese was French... it was weird.

Some of the supporting performances were really good. I didn't have much of a problem with the weird casting-- Molly Shannon and Rip Torn and so on. And I really liked Rose Byrne (former handmaiden to Senator Amidala, and also Briseis in Troy-- apprently selling your soul to George Lucas gets you hot naked men and pretty dresses) and the guy who played Louis XVI. Rose was just... fabulously fun, and I wanted to give Louis a hug. Also, the little girls who played Marie Therese were really French and THE CUTEST CHILDREN EVER. They were just toddling along, babbling in French, and it was adorable. I wanted to take one home.

Here is briefly how the movie went.

Marie Antoinette, dressed like Alice in Wonderland to convey that she is supposed to be 14 even though Kirsten Dunst is just not, is sent off from Austria to France with her pug dog, who I think should get the Oscar, by her mother Not Judi Dench. On the border, Molly Shannon and Moaning Myrtle (bff) strip her and take away her doggy and give her new clothes. She meets Louis, who is like, "Ewww, a girrrrl!" King Louis the Rip Torn is pervy, and Molly and Myrtle are catty.

There is a gorgeous wedding scene, and we admire the pretty. There is a wedding night and no sex. In the morning Marie is stripped again in front of everybody. She makes friends with some Nice Comtesse.

Many more scenes of the same pass by. Marie refuses to make friends with Madame du Barry, because Madame du Barry is a whore. There is some controversy about this, and about the lack of sex. Not Judi Dench writes to Marie about it a lot. Finally, Marie comes up to Madame du Barry and says, "There are a lot of people here today" in order to get everyone off her back. That scene is actually kind of good.

There are more scenes of pretty to admire. Some random woman has a baby, and Marie cries because she is still a virgin ("DAMMIT!"). Marie copes with this by first sliding down a wall (Kirsten Dunst wonders, "Do I need to pick up groceries on the way home?") and then by having a montage of shoes and really yummy looking food. It looks kind of like if Clueless was a period movie (and that period movie was not Emma). She goes to some opera and we have the pleasure of being introduced to Rose Byrne, Duchess of Something. Marie and Rose Byrne, Duchess of Something are now BFF. Molly and Myrtle will now disappear from the narrative, never to be seen again. Rose and Marie drag their spouses to a spendidly gorgeous masquerade ball, where Marie flirts with some Swedish army officer. You would think at this point that something was going to happen betweeen them, but he does not appear again for another good half hour at the very least. Probably 45 minutes.

Maybe it is at this point that Marie and Louis are just standing around waiting for something to happen when some people run up and say that Louis the Rip Torn is dead and they now rule France.

There is a birthday party of debauchery, and that is also pretty and there are more shoes and food and fun games which involve sticking paper on your head and guessing whether you are Mozart or Madame du Barry. I totally want to play that game. At this point public opinion of Marie is not too high. This is expressed through showing a portrait of her and spattering, headline-style across it, words like "Harlot!" I... don't know, but I am not making this up.

Marie's brother visits and gives Louis some manly talking-to and finally there is sex. And then there is a baby. Publicly. Ew. Later on, Marie builds herself a little fake countryside for her to take her adorable daughter to and play with lambs. Marie Therese, the adorable daughter, tries to ignore Kirsten Dunst saying, "Look! Beautiful!" She points at a flower and says, "Bleau." "Yes!" says Kirsten Dunst, excited. "Blue!" Marie puts on her very own opera. At some point that Swedish officer from waaaay back when shows up again and they do the sex a lot. Then he leaves, and Kirsten expresses a mild amount of regret.

There are more silent scenes of pretty. Look how pretty Versailles is!

Marie is staring out the window and has a random fantasy sequence of her Swedish officer boyfriend in the midst of a bloody battlefield. He will never be seen again, nor will his fate be explained.

...I know.

Not Judi Dench dies while Marie is standing around waiting for people to run up to her and deliver some kind of news in the midst of the pretty. She writes a voiceover letter to her brother (who we never see or hear from), "I am devastated by our mother's death" or something, and Whitney and I both burst out laughing because it is said in a monotone, the same voice one might use to say, "I picked up some rice at the grocery store." Thank you, Kirsten.

There are more babies and some babies die, expressed by the hanging up and taking down and re-hanging of a portrait. Public sentiment begins to turn against Louis and Marie, as word spread arounds around the country that Marie responded to the plight of the peasants with, "Let them eat cake." "That's ridiculous!" says Marie. "That was just a fantasy sequence! Where would I have gotten lipstick that dark? And why would I be wearing it in the bathtub? It makes no sense!"

But things just get worse until finally Nice Comtesse and Rose Byrne, Duchess of Something are sent away for their own safety. There is a mob in the night and they're calling for the Queen, so she steps out onto the balcony and is all, "Don't cry for me, French peasants," and the peasants are like, "Dude, why did she just come out here and stand on the balcony and lean over all dramatically like that? Huh. Oh, well. KILLLLL THEMMMM!" In response to the loudness outside, Louis stands up in front of his family as though he can protect them. Awww. And then Marie Therese comes up and takes her daddy's hand. AWWWWWW.

Then Marie and Louis and their two living children leave Versailles. ("Get your stupid veil out of my face, Kirsten!" says the baby dauphin.) Marie stares out the carriage window at the retreating pretty. Louis is like, "Hey, Marie, you look like you might be having an emotion." And Marie says, "I"m just saying goodbye."

Very Abrupt Fin.

And Whitney and I look at each other and simultaneously say, "What?"