A French's review

A BEAUTIFUL, TOUCHING MASTERPIECE, October 21, 2006

Reviewer: Movie_Fan (Texas)
"I'll start by saying that I am French, and that I have studied Marie Antoinette as part of the history curriculum.

To say this is a historical movie would be a mistake. Then again...Yes, to the french, Marie Antoinette was seen as this heartless foreigner who, because of her extravagant spendings and way of life, doomed France and burned it to the ground, and that belief still stands today, that's still what's in the history books. She is summed up with one sentence: "Let them eat cake", a phrase which she apparently muttered when she was told the population was starving and didn't have enough bread.

So it's no surprise this movie didn't go over too well with the french critics at Cannes, since here she is depicted as a lost teenage girl thrown into a world she wasn't prepared to enter and given responsibilites no 14 year old could ever deal with, notably saving the country from famine and war.

Personally, I loved this movie. But to appreciate it, you have to let go of that historical aspect, which Sofia Coppola helps with by putting history in the backseat for most of the movie. There's some in the beginning, but the moment you fully realize that she is a historical figure in the movie is at the end.

It's really more a story about growing up, trying to find your place, feeling trapped and how to deal with that, and Kirsten Dunst portrays perfectly all those feelings, and she's very reacheable, and I identified so much with her, because you don't see her as royalty, just as a lost teenager.

Some might not like the movie because of its pace. Yes, just as a warning, most of the movie is people sitting around, reading, listening to soft music, peacefully "frolicking" and rolling in high grass, waiting, and then comes sudden bursts of retro bubbly music that fits perfectly with the tone of the movie along with the parties and getting dressed up.

Personally, I wasn't bored once, I never looked at my watch, it's a movie that if you like this sort of movie (You could possibly find similarities with "Pride and Prejudice" from last year), then you'll be completely captivated.
The whole film is cast perfectly, and the soundtrack is just amazing, and if you got into the spirit of the movie, then the end, when you realize that she was actually a real person, and that she might not have been that heartless, just lost and too young,

along with the hauntingly beautiful music ("Opus 36" on the soundtrack), will pull at your heart strings.
It's definitely a movie that made me think about Marie Antoinette, and shows a different side of the story. But you can't regard it as a historical piece, because that's not the focus of the movie. I also thought that it completely surpassed "Lost In Translation".

It has become one of my favorite films, and I'll regard it as a masterpiece. I fell in love with it as well as with its music.
It's a movie I whole-heartedly recommend."