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Farewell, My Queen (2012) You'd think that an ambitious French director, dramatizing the days before Marie Antoinette fled Versailles, would have some new insight into the ways of the… R PT100M Drama Epic Diane Kruger Lea Seydoux Virginie Ledoyen Xavier Beauvois
Movie Review

Farewell, My Queen (2012)

MPAA Rating: R
Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman | Jul 18, 2012

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STALE CAKE Director Benoît Jacquot brings nothing new to the table in his version of Marie Antoinette's last days in Versailles
Image credit: Carole Bethuel/Cohen Media Group
STALE CAKE Director Benoît Jacquot brings nothing new to the table in his version of Marie Antoinette's last days in Versailles
EW's GRADE
C

Details Limited Release: Jul 13, 2012; Rated: R; Length: 100 Minutes; Genres: Drama, Epic; With: Diane Kruger and Lea Seydoux

You'd think that an ambitious French director, dramatizing the days before Marie Antoinette fled Versailles, would have some new insight into the ways of the decadent royals. But Benoît Jacquot's film is shackled to a blah bourgeois leftism: The queen (Diane Kruger), a naive chatterbox, is seen through the eyes of one of her handmaidens, played by Léa Seydoux as a pouting princess prole with no dimension beyond her shrewd quietude. Farewell, My Queen was shot in Versailles, but its flat schematism only highlights that the backdrops had a better story to tell. C

Originally posted Jul 11, 2012 Published in issue #1216 Jul 20, 2012 Order article reprints