So much in love with movies


Feb 14

Marie Antoinette DVD Review: Sofia Coppola turns French History into an 80’s teen movie

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Marie Antoinette DVD coverIf John Hughes made a period piece, I imagine it would be a lot like this. The only thing missing is Anthony Michael Hall.

But Marie Antoinette is Sofia Coppola’s tale of the storied young queen of France and her life as young royalty. At the ripe age of fifteen, Marie Antoinette (played by Kirsten Dunst) was sent from her native Austria to marry the young heir to the French crown, Louis XVI (Rushmore’s Jason Schwartzman).

Marie’s happiness isn’t as important as providing the young heir with his heir, but Coppola shows her making the best of it. To balance out her frequent boredom and displeasure with royal protocol, she developed an addiction to spending and gambling. This film chronicles Maria Antoinette’s extravagant lifestyle as a young and unready queen to her supposed role in the impending French Revolution.

All set to punk music.

To be successful, a period movie needs to accomplish two of three things: Entertain, educate, and earn money.

In the entertainment department, this movie somewhat succeeds.

The style Coppola adopts is both innovative and imaginative, using modern music and 18th century fashion to tell the story of the famous teenage queen. However, the script takes a back set to such a style when the film takes long breaks between meaningful dialogue, including the lack of an actual conversation until almost the twenty minute mark. To make up for the dialogue dearth, Coppola focuses on the small details that plague any teenage couple. Things like sexual awkwardness, forced maturity, and excessive partying attempt to move the story forward while the film establishes a plot. As a side note, what works for American audiences did not fare well with the French themselves as booing was heard at the Cannes Film Festival screening, but that could be just French political displeasure with the title character.

In the education department, there’s nothing to learn here.

What should have been a story about Marie Antoinette’s impact on the French Revolution turned out to be just a fashion show. Instead of hearing Mozart or beautiful works of French composers, we hear punk versions of “I Want Candy” and “Fools Rush In”. What made it worse was the movie left out the two main things she was known for. Her “let them have cake” quote took up a total of ten seconds or so of runtime and her execution was completely left out of the picture. Coppola turns the story of an ill-fated queen into a feel good story, which was probably her intent anyway.

Finally, in the earning money department, this didn’t fatten too many pockets.

What was seen as a failure at the American box office (just shy of $16 mil), saved itself in foreign theatres (just over $36 mil). With a production cost of $40 million, the profit margin is definitely nothing to write home about. The lack of promotion for the DVD release won’t be any help either.

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6 Responses to “Marie Antoinette DVD Review: Sofia Coppola turns French History into an 80’s teen movie”

  1.  Eoin Says:

    I have severe reservations about this film. By making Marie Antionette an 80s teen movie, like you say, by making visual and aural links between a teen at the time and a teen now, Coppolla shows utter ignorance to the concept of history. To understand a person, you must understand his/her circumstance, in context with the xociety around her. Modern society is a million miles away from the 18th century, and to make a comparision is downright naivety, if not stupidity.

  2.  aaron Says:

    I somewhat agree. I although I was mildy entertained, I wasn’t really able to learn anything about what is supposed to be an important time period in French history. It almost cheapened the stroy itself. Oh well. That’s what the internet is for.

  3.  daryl Says:

    I loved it! I see it as Coppola arguing against the accepted history that Antoinette was a just a spendhappy good time girl who ruined France. She makes sure to hammer home how depressing her life as a glorified breeding machine is at Versailles, showing us her punk rebellion as the only possible escape from that life.

    The reason the cakes quote is dismissed in 10 second is because Coppola is arguing that Antoinette never said it. So I’d disagree about not learning anything. Anyone can read the standard received historical account of Antoinette, this is the contrarian viewpoint. With punk music!

  4.  aaron Says:

    I see your point

  5.  Jess Says:

    i loved the music, although i must admit, it’s weird hearing those kind of music in a movie like this. but i guess if you watch it without the sound, it’ll be a boring movie.
    i love this movie. it’s not perfect, maybe it’s far from it but i really enjoy every bits of this movie.

  6.  james Says:

    Sofia Coppola’s is without doubt an extremely talented artist. However, what was she thinking when she made M.A. She had it all, the location, right fashion and a few great actors (sorry, but nepotism never really works). Yet, she takes an amazing story and tries to make it somewhat historical with a musical modern twist. She should have learned a lesson from the modern film Romeo & Juliet staring Leonardo DiCaprio - IT DOESN’T WORK in most cases. First what market was she trying to target? The younger generation doesn’t, in most cases, want to see a movie about history, unless there is a lot of nudity and violence, and the older generation wants to see an actual, historical movie. Now if you’re in the “artistic” category in which you like avant-garde movies then there is your audience, but guess what, your movie is not going to make any money, as we see with M.A. I was so excited when the information was released regarding this movie because I’m such a historical buff regarding that period, but what a disappointment. Mrs. Coppola could have made such an amazing movie.

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