Director: Sofia Coppola
Staring: Kirsten Dunst, Marianne Faithful, Steve Coogan

Based on her previous movies, you might expect Sophia Coppola’s newest film, Marie Antoinette, to be a slow-paced but ultimately rewarding story of being female and lonely. Certainly the film centers around the sexual dynamics of Antoinette’s life, and the pace crawls at that of a turtle, but when the film ends there is just no resonance. Where Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation managed to entertain at a slow pace, Marie Antoinette lacks the inherent emotion and character that Coppola’s previous films held. The problem really lies in the fact that this film is a biopic.

Where most movies—even more traditional, oversimplified biopics—have central conflicts, Coppola has told a straightforward account of Antoinette’s life. The way the film is structured, each conflict in Antoinette’s life is given only a few minutes of screen time. Rarely do conflicts lead logically into one another. So, after the second conflict of Antoinette losing her virginity to Louis XVI is resolved, you are left not caring what comes next. At this point though, the movie is only one-third of the way through its running time.

Coppola’s script, and the movie as a whole really, has another inherent flaw; that of the balance between contemporary and historical elements. Her characters bounce between talking in what is commonly accepted as historical jargon and a more modern, slangy dialogue. Similarly, the music alternates between classical music contemporary to the movie’s setting and more modern pop music.

If you can tolerate these jarring alternations, and the painful lack of central conflict, Marie Antoinette may hold some appeal. Coppola has a knack for working with actors. Kirsten Dunst is a talented young actor, and her performance in this film may be her best yet. For the rest of the movie, Coppola cast relatively unknown actors, all of whom fill their roles nicely. Jason Schwartzman, for example, is pious and nervous as the young Louis XVI.

Coppola was apparently given free reign of Versailles and a number of other historic sites. There can be no greater on-screen substitute than location, and with beautifully placed costumes and set pieces, the dynamic of the film is amazing. Unfortunately, Coppola occasionally attempts to use unconventional camera techniques when, sadly, she is not a visual director, thus her attempts come across as annoying. Head room is extended to the point where actors are blurred out at the border of a shot, and what little handheld camerawork there is in the film tends to be nauseating.

It is a great shame that despite some masterfully-directed performances, Marie Antoinette does not live up to the reputation that writer/director Sophia Coppola has garnered for herself. The constant alternation between contemporary references and attempts at historical accuracy, together with the inherent lack of central conflict or plot makes this biopic and character study inherently boring. In short, this film is a disappointment from a director who, in her past two films, showed a great deal of promise.

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