Review: Farewell, My Queen

Set in the late 1700s as France is on the verge of Revolution, the film takes the point of view of one of the few devoted to the reigning Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). As unrest spooks most out of the Queen’s palace, a beautiful young servant, the Queen’s reader Sidonie (Lea Seydoux) refuses to flee. Charged with judging reading material appropriate to the Queen’s ever-changing mood, the younger woman is romantically infatuated with the somewhat temperamental Queen, and is seemingly willing to die for her. However, the Queen’s heart lies with another, Duchesse Gabrielle de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen), her lover for quite some time now. Outside, meanwhile, the rebelling citizens are drawing a list of offending Royals and aristocrats to behead (286 names in total!).

 

Released in Australia in 2013, this French-Spanish drama comes with a cracker of a premise, as well as a volatile backdrop of France on the eve of Revolution. It’s a solid film, well-acted and often fascinating. Why the fuck aren’t all films on Marie Antoinette centred around her lesbian leanings, damn it? Yes, I’m a pervert. Your point? However, what’s disappointing about it is that it squanders the potential for genuine eroticism. It centres around a young woman who has lustful longings for Marie Antoinette (who in turn is madly in love with the Duchesse Gabrielle de Polignac), and yet…the film never delivers the goods with any of these couplings. It’s infuriatingly chaste, as the sexiest the film gets is a pair of nude scenes. I honestly couldn’t believe it, but it’s not just the sexual activity that is lacking (I’m a perve, but hopefully not a single-minded one), but there isn’t quite enough depth to the actual relationships between these three women in my opinion, a much more crucial flaw. I could accept a chaste approach if I were still able to invest in the characters and their relationships. There aren’t nearly enough scenes between Lea Seydoux and Diane Kruger, and Kruger and Virginie Ledoyen to really get invested in either relationship. It’s so frustratingly understated, but also underdone.

 

Part of the problem may be that the position that the Seydoux character is in, requires that she doesn’t mix with the queen all that often, and true the film is about longing and somewhat unrequited love, but still, there’s too few scenes between the characters for my liking. It’s almost as if there’s a second act missing here in the screenplay by director Benoit Jacquot (“The School of Flesh”) and co-writer Gilles Taurand.

 

And yet, the film has enough positive qualities to still earn a passing grade, amazingly enough. Firstly, and most superficially, the three central women are absolutely gorgeous. Seydoux has a marvellous bust, and a truly, truly outstanding body overall. The camera wants to have its way with her. As for Ms. Ledoyen? I want one. Diane Kruger in my opinion has never looked more beautiful, despite playing a somewhat aging Queen. It’s a shame that Kruger wasn’t made to look this beautiful as Helen of Troy.

 

The film itself is aesthetically pleasing as you’d expect, with beautiful production/set design and costuming. And the occasional rat thrown in. France was on a downward spiral here folks. The film definitely nails the fear and anxiety over the impending crumbling of an empire. So on the level of a look into the goings on in pre-Revolution France, it’s fascinating stuff. Despite lacking the emotional pull and being quite restrained, stars Diane Kruger and Lea Seydoux try their damndest to compensate, and do a really good job of it. Seydoux does a much better job through her performance of suggesting lust and passion than anything else in the film. Even better is Diane Kruger, showing that even the Queen of France can have woman troubles, and feel helplessly, insanely, and obsessively in love. I have no idea how true any of this is, but it was fascinating and believable. Kruger nails the character’s rather cold, brittle side. She’s a bit cruel at times, but you want to forgive her, given she has a country to run and it’s verging on rebelling against her! I don’t understand why this film isn’t so well-known, but it’s not entirely successful.

 

There’s a lot to like here, but you can’t help but feel slightly underwhelmed when it’s all over. And that is down to the development of the relationships that are at the heart of the film. Such a shame, because this could’ve been even better (and hotter) than it is. The screenplay is based on a novel by Chantal Thomas, a work of ‘historical fiction’.

 

Rating: B-