Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Sofia Coppola was riding high off the critical successes of The Virgin Suicides and especially Lost In Translation, but I think it’s fair to say that Marie Antoinette was at best divisive, perhaps more accurately panned, on its release back in 2K6, and while my ear is not close to the ground for this sort of thing I don’t think there’s been a great deal of clamouring for a reappraisal in space coronayear 2K20. But as I was put off entirely by its reception first time around, let’s see what a fresh pair of eyes on the situation can see.
Unsurprisingly enough, this is a tale of Kirsten Dunst’s Marie Antoinette, the young archduchess of Austria that was betrothed at the age of 14 to Jason Schwartzman’s Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne and ultimately King Louis XVI, once Rip Torn’s Louis XV pops his clogs. Yes, that Rip Torn. No, I didn’t think so either.
While I’m sure there were some examples in antiquity of a queen being the power behind the throne, even disregarding the more obvious cases of being the power on the throne, there appears to be little evidence that Marie’s talents lay in that direction, expected more to be a symbol of cementing relations between Austria and France, and delivering a heir to the throne.
And despite some iconoclastic filmmaking choices, Marie Antoinette The Film does not seek to deviate much from the accepted events of Marie Antoinette The Historical Figure, but is much more concerned with the pressure placed on her shoulders to consummate the marriage, a cementing of relations both personal and political, with the Dauphin, despite his seeming indifference or reluctance, and also the relationship with the French courts and public, both broadly going from warm to awful as her profligate spending puts an increasing hurt on the public purse.
There’s a line I stumbled across on Rotten Tomatoes from The Independent’s Antony Quinn “Marie Antoinette is about confinement in a gilded cage, and, perversely or not, shows itself far more interested in the cage than in the prisoner.” – which is a great line, but I think entirely incorrect. Sure, it’s not a film shying away from the ridiculous opulence that Marie finds herself in, but her embrace of that as a coping mechanism is surely one of the driving character points of the film, and indeed a part of the public relations mis-steps that ultimately led to her final one foot height reduction procedure (or more accurately, one head). Although the war thing probably didn’t help either.
I think this was perhaps the time of peak Kirsten Dunst, and frankly I’m a little bummed that she’s either chosen to or been forced to take a bit of a back seat throughout the 2010s, because I think she’s doing a great job of bringing humanity and vulnerability to the character while at the same time trying to keep up the facade of royal infallibility. Where the character development, and indeed the film, suffers a bit is that due to eighteenth century logistical constraints there’s a bunch of infodumps and ultimatums delivered by mail and voiceover that would have been, dramatically speaking, better if could be done face to face.
But that would, I suppose, be taking too much of a liberty with the truth of Marie’s life, to which this hews quite close. Sure, there’s some contemporary music thrown at the audience to indicate mood at times, but it’s not like it’s diegetic or anything, so I’m surprised to film myself okay with it. It ties in to the sense of fun that pervades a good deal of Marie Antoinette. If, however, you’re looking for a real in-depth look at her character, this doesn’t deliver it. It’s a bit too coy and mysterious, perhaps borrowing a little too closely from Lost In Translation‘s playbook, which I can see some finding frustration.
Ultimately it’s more of an artist’s abstract impression of Marie’s personality than it is a recounting of her entire life, and I think I’m largely on board with that. There’s plenty of histories available for the facts and numbers, but as a broad encapsulation of her feelings this is hard to argue with. I can see why it’s divisive, but overall I rather enjoyed Marie Antoinette even if at parts it’s veering dangerously close to the sugary confections it so loving portrays.