Marie Antoinette

“Dear God, guide us and protect us,” whispers Louis XVI (Schwartzman) upon his coronation. “We are too young to reign.” Thus does writer/director Coppola render the story of his bride, the famous Marie-Antoinette (Dunst), and her court as a sort of 18th-century teenage riot, replete with a shopping montage set to Bow Wow Wow. There’s nothing terribly problematic about Coppola’s anachronistic New Wave needle-dropping, which halts before the Bastille falls and the tumbrels start rolling, but for a simple excess of it. As motherhood transforms Marie-Antoinette into a more sympathetic figure, Dunst transforms as well – from a callow pleasure-hound to a grave and haunted woman. It’s a fine performance, a true star turn. Don’t fear the film’s early reviews from Cannes, which too often slighted Marie Antoinette for being fluffy (it isn’t, though its heroine is) or ahistorical (it isn’t, though it is contemporary).