The mere existence of a Marie Antoinette biopic directed by
the inventive Sofia Coppola, following up the terrific Lost In Translation, promises a historical costume
drama the likes of which has never been seen. For roughly three minutes, Marie
Antoinette delivers
on that promise. Gang Of Four's "Natural's Not In It" plays against the bump of
Sex Pistols-inspired titles, culminating in an image of Kirsten Dunst,
Coppola's Antoinette, resplendent in the kind of starched-and-powdered
18th-century luxury that keeps anything remotely natural at arm's length. It's
a thrilling introduction. Then the film begins.
Beautifully shot with nods to late-18th-century art and the
icy formality of Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, Coppola draws on Antonia Fraser's
sympathetic bio Marie Antoinette: The Journey, letting Dunst play the queen as a
nice, naïve Austrian girl thrust into a strange land and an arranged marriage
by politics she doesn't understand. She's shaped by fame and lofty
expectations, but never turned into the monster that history made her to be.
Dunst and her Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) mostly live in isolation at
Versailles. They host parties and attend to domestic affairs (and later, for
Dunst, love affairs) in a hurricane's eye that keeps a growing storm at bay, at
least for a while.
It's a daring move, focusing on the isolated splendor and
interior dramas, and letting the politics remain at most a distant rumble;
Coppola deserves credit for offering a different, and probably truer,
perspective on life as a royal. But the perspective rarely lends itself to
compelling filmmaking. When Marie Antoinette does settle into the business of
plot, it scares up some nice moments, bringing dry humor into Schwartzman's
all-too-public inability to consummate his marriage, much less produce an heir.
And the film takes time to explore fascinating details, such as the servant
charged with wiping off the eggs at a country retreat so Dunst's daughter can
gather them. Elsewhere, Rip Torn and Asia Argento bring some much-needed
earthiness to the airless proceedings as Louis XV and his uncouth mistress
Madame du Barry.
But for all its invention, Marie Antoinette ultimately falls into the same
traps as other historical dramas. It has to check off history's
highlights–Louis XV's death, du Barry's expulsion, the American Revolution,
"Let them eat cake!"–as it chugs toward the inevitable. The mostly post-punk
and new-wave soundtrack feels shoehorned in, and Dunst's flat line-readings do
little to squelch the notion that the film's insights don't go much further
than the costumes and famous locations. It's history written with truffles.