(2006) "The problem of leisure, what to do for pleasure …" From the opening scene there's a clash of expectations: I thought this was going to be another 18th-century costume drama with meticulous attention to period details - filmed on location in France - so what's this 21st-century British post-punk group Gang of Four performing "Natural's Not in It" doing here? ("Fornication makes you happy." PG-13 rated in part for "innuendo.")

Well, as Kirsten Dunst in the role of Marie Antoinette gives the camera a wry, knowing smile, we see both a present-day teenager and an Austrian princess in 1768 about to depart Vienna by carriage for France. In the handover ritual conducted by Comtesse de Noailles (Judy Davis), she must remove everything of hers from Austria in order to don only French clothing, leaving behind her pooch Mops as well. Her grandfather-in-law-to-be, King Louis XV (Rip Torn) inquires: "How's her bosom?"

The dialogue - along with the soundtrack, featuring Bow Wow Wow, The Cure, and The Radio Dept - is both English and contemporary in director/writer Sofia Coppola's grimace-and-bare-it satire, based on Antonia Fraser's book, Marie Antoinette: The Journey.

Inside Versailles, the Château de Chantilly, and the Opera National de Paris, the settings are ocular spectacles where the dauphin Louis Auguste (Jason Schwartzman) marries Marie, timidly sleeps with her ("Apparently nothing happened, your Majesty"), dines with her, entertains her, but fails to consummate the marriage.

Getting dressed is an ordeal of etiquette, depending on who enters Marie's bedroom, especially on a cold morning, having rank and thus honor of clothing the dauphine. "This is ridiculous," cries Marie. "This, Madame, is Versailles," replies her attendant.

From the outset the French resent a foreigner in their court, though the arrangement forms a political alliance between the two nations; rumors rapidly fly that she is frigid or barren, that she had a child in Austria and is now a spy. Her mother sends Marie frequent letters, warning of the "dangerous situation," urging her to "inspire sexual passion" in her husband, for nothing is certain until an heir is produced.

In snubbing the king's bejeweled mistress (who "can't pass a mirror without seducing it"), Madame du Barry (Asia Argento), for her reputation as a whore, Marie further puts herself on shaky ground. Everywhere we see fashionable women in gorgeous gowns and colorful shoes with hair piled high accompanied by smartly attired men, sipping champagne and gorging on sumptuous delicacies (made of strawberries, cheese, creams, chocolate).

At a masked ball in Paris, someone who doesn't recognize Louis Auguste asks: "Has the dauphin deflowered the dauphine?" There as well Marie meets Count Fersen of the Swedish army, who has a reputation with ladies.

Following his grandfather's death from small pox, King Louis XVI is crowned; Queen Marie celebrates her 18th birthday with extravagance. The couple behaves like irresponsible, aristocratic adolescents, ruining the country with debt, though the king agrees to support the American revolution, ignoring the hunger of his own people for food and freedom.

Marie's brother, Emperor Joseph (Danny Huston), pays a visit, lecturing her on her profligate gambling and improvident choice of frivolous companions; he speaks to the king by analogy, using the monarch's fascination with locks, to politely express the necessity of inserting a key at the proper moment to unlock the future. Soon after, Marie conceives, giving birth to a baby girl, Marie Thérèse.

Escaping from the protocol of Versailles by residing at her country estate, reading Rousseau's philosophy of man's natural state, giving herself over to her artistic temperament, Marie allows Count Fersen, having returned from fighting in the American war of independence, to amuse her, applying his key to release her rapture. When someone says that common talk has attributed to her having said of the masses, "Let them eat cake," Marie answers she would never say that.

A report arrives of her mother's death; Marie gives birth to the new dauphin of France. (Who's the father?)

Public contempt rises against her ("the Queen of Debt"); an angry mob storms the Bastille fortress; members of the royal family flee for safety, though Louis refuses to be "a fugitive king," and his queen remains at his side with their children. As thousands besiege Versailles, Marie goes to the balcony and bows to them.

The tragic end is not part of this story - ignored or forgotten - as much as if to say, 340 years later, how little has changed in the palaces of power.

Marianne Faithfull plays the part of Marie's mother, Maria Teresa; Shirley Henderson appears as Aunt Sophie.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .