While in many ways this reflects much of the argument of Antonia Fraser’s biography of Marie Antoinette (the inspiration for Coppola’s film) which argues that the Dauphine was a political pawn, it does not do justice to the fact that Marie Antoinette was a witty, intelligent, and articulate woman in her own right who also wrote as well as received an epic correspondence. Where are her responses to her mother’s letters in this film? Indeed, where is her voice and personality at all?
Marie Antoinette’s only “character development” seems to be a random affair with the Swedish officer, Count Ferson (played by newcomer Jamie Dornan) – which appears to have been thrown in merely in order to get a great poster shot of Kirsten Dunst in a seductive pose wearing lingerie – her mother’s death, and the death of her second son, which is only depicted cryptically through the changing of portraits on the wall. How are we expected to swallow her sudden transformation from freewheeling party girl to serious, supportive wife at the end of the film with these hastily mentioned plot points?
In the end, I found the film an expensive-looking advertisement for the soundtrack (which tries to be avant-garde but actually comes off as rather cliché), accessory tie-ins, and the French tourist industry. Someone should really sit Sofia Coppola down and have her watch Patricia Rozema’s Mansfield Park (1999), Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table (1990), Claire Denis’s Chocolat (1988), or Dorothy Arzner’s Christopher Strong (1933) so she can see what interesting films can be made when a woman is in the director’s seat and actively challenges the status quo a bit.
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