Marie Antoinette

Whatever the film's structural failings and historical gaps, it's great to see such a distinctive directorial vision coming out of Hollywood.

...an ambitious, affecting, truly distinctive piece of work, albeit one that will tell you more about 1780s footwear than about the causes and effects of the French Revolution.

Drawn from Antonia Fraser's biography - or riffing on it - this slyly seditious comedy escorts sacred verities of French history and culture to the scaffold.

Marie Antoinette is about confinement in a gilded cage, and, perversely or not, shows itself far more interested in the cage than in the prisoner.

Sofia Coppola's giddy, girly and defiantly revisionist Marie Antoinette didn't deserve the reaction it got in Cannes earlier this year.

It's a highly personal film, which takes us into the very limited universe of a very young woman forced to play a very public role, gorgeously laying forth the trappings of luxury,... until we,... realize that it's nothing more than a gilded cage.

There is a certain solemnity in its costume design and art direction, but as a biopic it barely scratches the surface and lacks narrative depth in its fable about the flamboyant monarch. [Full review in Spanish]

Marie Antoinette has flaws, but still remains a good enough film with tremendous set and costume design. Add in Kirsten Dunst and her performance in the title role and you have something that a lot of audiences can enjoy

... a rock and roll version of history, scored entirely with pop music and reflected through Coppola’s modern sensibilities, at once compassionate and savagely critical of the kids on the throne.

Marie becomes indiscreet, a party girl, drenched in the decadence of gowns, wigs, shoes, champagne and all manner of cookies and cake.. Coppola is self-aware: as a child of privileged American movie royalty with many friends in fashion...