Slacks for Ella Funt

I wasn’t sure if I would love this movie or hate it. In the end, it was something in the middle. Sofia Coppola tells pretty much the same story in every movie, a lonely girl overwhelemed by her world. And her movies tend to be much more about mood and images than about plot. Her first film, The Virgin Suicides, was my favorite. The melancholy mood and misty camera work really work with the suburban gothic story. I had liked the book by Jeffrey Eugenides, and I was pleased that the film captured the mood of the book. With Lost in Translation, I found it very captivating in the theater and got swept up in the movie’s slow rhythm and introspection. When I saw it again at home, I found the main character whiny and annoying.

In Marie Antoinette, Coppola is again telling a story about a girl who is in over her head. The situation of the young queen is bizarre and impossible—she’s forced to leave everything she knows to go marry a prince she’s never met. She creates sort of a fantasy world of extravagance which then becomes part of why the French people turn against her.

I didn’t mind the lack of specific historical event details—that’s not really what you look for in a Sofia Coppola movie. The scenes filmed at Versailles were incredible—amazing to see what it must have really been like. But sometimes it seemed like Coppola got a little carried away with the clothes, shoes, pastries, etc. And while I left the film feeling sympathetic towards Marie Antoinette, that she was primarily a victim of circumstances, I also thought that she seemed like a beautiful little idiot, sort of a historical Paris Hilton.