We very much liked this beautiful costume drama about the spoiled Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger), her devoted servant (Léa Seydoux), and her best friend (Virginie Ledoyen), with both of whom she cuddles every chance she gets, at the end of the empire. Noémie Lvovsky has a wonderful turn as the head ladies' maid who speaks volumes wordlessly. Kruger (last in these pages in Unknown, but I didn't notice when I wrote about Inglourious Basterds that she was Helen to Orlando Bloom's Paris and Brad Pitt's Achilles in Troy (2004)) is very good as the petulant queen. If you saw Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006), with Kirsten Dunst as the queen at the beginning of her reign, you can well imagine her growing up to be this adult. Seydoux (quite the chameleon, she had one look as a blonde assassin in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, another in the modern part of Midnight in Paris, and yet another as the demure brunette in this one) convinces us of her devotion. Lvovsky has acted in, written, and directed a number of things, but I didn't recognize her all the while admiring her work as Madame Campan. Ledoyen's (I didn't see her in The Beach (2000) with Leonardo DiCaprio but quite liked The Valet (2006), among others) Duchesse is a frosty foil to Kruger's affectionate queen.
Director Benoît Jacquot (none of his many titles rings a bell, though this has been hailed as his "triumphant return"--strange, since he directed a 2010 release) and Gilles Taurand adapted Chantal Thomas' novel for the big screen.
It's been two months since we saw this. I was going to skip the music since I don't recall it. But then I realized it was scored by Bruno Coulais (most recently composed for Babies). Here's a clip from this one. Rottentomatoes' critics loved it, averaging 93%. Audiences not so much with 60. We did. It isn't yet out on DVD so save it to your netflix queue.
No comments:
Post a Comment