When I heard that Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” was booed at a film festival, I started to try to imagine how revolutionary a film it must be. I anticipated a film that would be polarizing and shocking and, whether wonderful or terrible, would at least transcend the biopic genre in some noteworthy ways.
Her bittersweet “Lost in Translation” is one of my favorite recent films and “The Virgin Suicides” had some interesting things going on, too. However, that’s the best thing I can say about “Marie Antoinette”: there were some interesting things about it.
I do think that it really showed its subject as a woman; you really felt Marie Antoinette’s life as it hung in a balance around her sexuality and maternity. Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette really bloomed when she finally performed her function and produced a child.
This movie and its lead were most compelling when those sides of her were the focus.
Probably the constrictions of her public life were intended to depict a sterile contrast to her inner life, but even if Coppola wanted those scenes to be boring to her characters, she needed to keep them from being boring for us.
I think that this film needed to find its strengths and cut out the rest. It seems like there were enough good scenes in it to almost rearrange it and goose it up a little, like a woman wearing big earrings to draw attention away from her hips. Which brings us to the film’s real stars: the opulent costumes.
Nothing compares to the splendid footwear in this movie, to which Coppola devotes a tasty montage set to the song “I Want Candy.” I don’t think that just slapping an anachronistic score on the movie modernizes it sufficiently- it’s a cheap and easy trick. There are parts of this movie that are more than that, but not enough of them to make this a great film.
“Marie Antoinette” is currently available to rent.
Matt Dillon redeems himself from the dreadful “You, Me and Dupree” with “Factotum,” based on the Charles Bukowski novel of the same name. Playing the Bukowski figure Henry Chinaski, a writer who keeps himself in booze through a series of short-lived, completely random jobs, Dillon takes his place beside Mickey Rourke in “Barfly” as a drunken, swaggering nihilist whose only concerns are women and alcohol.
There is a third concern, however, and that is writing. What makes this film interesting, even touching, even uplifting, is Chinaski’s abiding devotion to his writing. While performing menial jobs ranging from a pickle factory worker to an ice deliveryman (which he loses when he delivers ice to a bar and stays there), Chinaski plugs away at his writing. This is his, and the film’s, salvation.
With outlandish scenes that remain within the realm of possibility through great writing and acting, “Factotum” also miraculously avoids the pathetic. While the situations are on the outside sad and silly, Dillon delivers a verve that maintains his character’s nobility.
It doesn’t hurt that the excellent Lili Taylor is his main love interest; a scene in which her shoes hurt her and she ends up walking home in his oversized oxfords is downright romantic. That’s the kind of magic that is achieved throughout. The tone is perfectly realized. Marisa Tomei also turns in a subtle spot-on portrayal of a totally drunk yet still vertical woman.
Bukowski’s work benefits from a skilled restraint in “Factotum.” His can be an over-the-top character, fighting and chewing up the scenery and shouting about sex and booze, as in the aforementioned “Barfly.” But Dillon brings a weird gentility to the part, and this quieter portrayal is far more powerful.
“Factotum” is currently available to rent.
Contact Asia Frey at afrey@lagniappemobile.com.
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