Reviews

This is the first movie I've seen starring Angelina Jolie (the only other movie I've seen her in is 'Beowulf', which doesn't really provide much to compare) and I think that enabled me to see this film without any ingrained expectations or prejudices because I didn't really know what to expect from Jolie or Eastwood.

In saying that, I thoroughly enjoyed this film and even as it leant towards the three hour mark, I really didn't want it to end because, besides being fiercely involved in the film, I still harboured an idealistic hope that all would be well. I think that even though it was indeed a very dark and bleak film, it wasn't one which outstayed it's welcome by becoming tediously gloomy, because, besides handling the subject matter in a fashion that didn't become completely suffocating, it also compensated the darkness with a grimly bittersweet conclusion and a somewhat hopeful outlook on humanity as not being 'all bad'. In other words, the film delves deeply into the very worst aspects of human action and feeling before eventually resolving to the better, more compassionate aspects to leave us with the view that while some people are terrible, there are good people and there is hope. As Jolie's character, Christine Collins puts it in the last minutes of the film.

I felt that some of the aspects of this film were so horrific and graphic that they almost touched on Horror in a way. In that way, because some of the subject matter was so gruesome and confronting, it did make it almost unbelievable. After seeing an emotionally charged, dramatic, deeply intense movie like Revolutionary Road and then seeing Changeling, I found that while the subject matter in Changeling was somewhat more horrible, it didn't affect me so much or discomfort me as much. Mostly, I think, because the events were beyond what we expect to be confronted with in a civilised society: the murder of innocent children, a police force which condones violence and terror, the abuse of a mother at her most vulnerable are all things we find almost too horrific to believe and are ones we can't really relate to unless we've been in a similar circumstance, which I hope is not the case.

In saying that, the emotion was very real. The tension and unease were beautifully used to keep the audience on tenterhooks throughout the movie, always hoping that just around the corner would be Walter Collins, because we follow Christine through so much pain, fear and anguish. Despite this film's subject matter, I did enjoy it and that's not something you can often say about a film containing these sorts of events. The ending message, while certainly not a Hollywood happy ending, was one which really finished off a brilliant movie on a bittersweet, hopeful tone, but one which does not attempt to undo the horrors which unfold in this very unique and enthralling film. Jolie, by the way, was brilliant and I certainly will be keeping an eye out for her in the future to see if she can perform this well again.

When I originally heard that Sophia Coppola was creating a film about Marie Antoinette using undisguised American accents to a background of 80s pop, I was appalled. But after vowing I'd never sully my eyes with it, as things often happen... I now own two copies of the movie on DVD and consider it among my selective favourite films.

I think a film like this could be very much underestimated because of the youth and vitality in it, which might lead people to assume that it will provide a very basic and immature view on Marie Antoinette and her life. However, this movie has succeeded in not only creating a whole new view on the vilified Austrian turned French Queen but has humanised her for my generation. She is no longer a cruel, middle-aged tyrant who terrorized the French people and cared only for herself but an actual human being. A lonely and lost woman who was taken advantage of and forced into a situation completely beyond her experience or ability at the tender age of fourteen.

The movie itself is delicious to look at. The costumes, the music and the sets are almost edible, they are so lustre and rich. The costumes - oh my! They were stunning and Dunst looked glorious - I thought- as the young French queen. Convincing but effortlessly natural.

And the emotion was there. The pain, desperation, vulnerability, naivety and loneliness of Antoinette was so colourfully expressed through Dunst's very fresh and natural performance.

It is also pleasingly historically accurate. All the little details are there from Antoinette's sore relations with Madame Du Barry to the death of her daughter Sophie and the removal of her from the portrait. I think a sufficient understanding of Marie Antoinette's life is helpful because while I adored the movie and understood every detail, every gesture, every moment, a friend of mine claimed that she 'didn't understand parts of it' which originally caused me to despair at her ignorance but to later realise that if a person DIDN'T have a basic knowledge of Antoinette and the French Revolution some of the details would throw them. But this is one of very few flaws for me. I enjoyed it thoroughly and thought Dunst was at her best as the troubled Queen Marie Antoinette and Coppola did a fine job of naturalising the young Queen and making her flesh and blood.

I read the historical novel by Philippa Gregory before I saw this movie so maybe my expectations were too high... but what a terrible disappointment this movie was to me. My main problem with this movie was the horrific weakness in every inch of it. It didn't examine the themes in the book with nearly enough grit or depth and if I were Gregory I would be embarrassed to have my name associated with this soft, teen fluff...

Eric Bana as Henry VIII... whose bright idea was THAT? He was fake, stereotypical and way too clean cut for the adulterous, revolting, chauvinistic fiend Henry VIII was. Natalie Portman was passable... but Johansson was revoltingly flimsy as Mary, which is accurate to a point... but her blandness was just painful.

They skated over issues that they obviously dubbed too scandalous and confronting (i.e. incest, homosexuality etc…) and instead presented us with this fluffy, flimsy, weak... THING with no backbone and less substance than its main actors... This was just a Hollywood corrupted crowd pleaser and I am saddened that this, THIS represents such a fantastically gritty, unpretending and absorbing novel. Tsk tsk