MARIE ANTIONETTE (a review)

MARIE ANTIONETTE (a review)

Sophia Bush's follow-up to the acclaimed LOST IN TRANSLATION.

The story: a fictional biography of Marie Antionette, who became queen of France but as France became broke the peasants rebeled and throw out the ruling class.

Was it good?

It was okay. The biggest problem is that it felt totally directionless. The beginning is interesting. Marie was in the Austrian royal family and married off to a prince of France. She leaves everything she knows and is thrust into a family and royal court that she neither likes nor understands. Lots of awkward. To make matters worse her husband seems to have no sexual interest in her and she feels pressure from her family and the France family to produce an heir...even though her husband doesn't want to do her. Then the king dies and she and her husband become king and queen. And she finally has a child, but it is a girl. That's when things wander...she begins to exert herself a bit more, breaking classic royal traditions to form her own life, but there isn't much point to it. She has an affair, but that doesn't seem a big deal. Like I said it just kind of wanders. There's no real spine or drama going on. Then the peasants rebel and her family runs. The end.

Now, it's not like it was horrible. There are nice moments and it looks good and the idea of Jason Schwartzman as the prince/king is pretty funny, but it never really seems to deal with anything. The idea that these two people are overwhelmed by the responsisiblities of king-ness is fine, but it doesn't really get into that. It's just mentioned in a casual scene here and there.

So it was kind of okay, but not really good.

*** NOT RECOMMENDED ***