Cannes. Marie-Antoinette.

"Coppola's basic idea here is at once simple and remarkably poignant," writes Mike D'Angelo at Nerve. "She makes us feel the bewilderment and alienation of a young girl ejected from the world she's always known and thrust into a position of great power and stifling regiment by taking bubbly, vivacious Kirsten Dunst - playing more or less the same wholly contemporary mall denizen we've seen in films like Bring It On and Elizabethtown - and trapping her in a stately historical drama. The result is something like The Princess Diaries as it might have been conceived by... well, by Sofia Coppola." Ultimately, he finds it "so much more ambitious and interesting than a conventional biopic - even a fairly decent one, like the Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth - that I found myself rooting for it in spite of its thinness and clumsiness."

Updated through 5/28.

"As a study in surface, it's quite impeccable. Soon, though, this flippancy begins to grate and it becomes more and more apparent that Coppola has failed really to grapple on any meaningful level with her subject," writes Time Out's Dave Calhoun. "Ultimately, considering Coppola's attempt to shoe-horn the French revolution into the film's last ten minutes, her disengagement is more than lazy; it's a little offensive. It may be hip, but it ain't history."

"When Marie Antoinette focuses on the mores and manners of the 18th century French court, it's interesting stuff; those moments, though, come few and far between," writes Cinematical's James Rocchi. "Much of Coppola's film is given over to sequences of dancing, trying on clothes or relaxing - all of which may have been important elements of Marie Antoinette's life, but they hardly make for thrilling cinema."

The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt draws parallels with Lost in Translation but then notes: "The problem Coppola confronts is that Marie Antoinette is a protagonist to whom things happen.... Coppola's solution to this dramatic handicap is to conspire with her star to achieve an empathetic portrait of a life spent in a gilded, vast prison." More plus points for the cast, the cinematography; in the end, Coppola "achieves a harmonious blend of history and contemporary perceptions."

Jeffrey Wells: "This will certainly rank as a stain upon Coppola's reputation, as she has arguably made the shallowest and dullest historical biopic of all time."

The Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson interviews Sofia Coppola and Kenneth Turan profiles Coppola in the Los Angeles Times.

"'Let them have eye candy' pretty much sums up Sofia Coppola's approach to her revisionist and modernist take on the famous royal airhead who in the end lost her head," writes Variety's Todd McCarthy, adding that the "follow-up to her breakthrough second feature, Lost in Translation, is no more nourishing than a bonbon.

Anne Thompson: "Any critic demanding intellectual content will wind up hungry for nourishment. I suspect that this will play best for young women. My 16 year old daughter will love it."

Matt Riviera: "Sofia Coppola's talent is undeniable, but one can't help but hope that she will soon get over her spoilt brat syndrome and perhaps work in collaboration with screenwriters who have spent a little more time outside the gilded cage."

Premiere's Glenn Kenny: "I'll say right up front that I'm pro. Very pro. This is a witty, inventive, modernist-skewed look at girl power and the lack thereof, a view of bubbled life from inside the bubble, a story of how ignorance is bliss until the thing you're ignorant of starts biting you in the ass."

Updates, 5/25: Manohla Dargis and AO Scott present their takes in the New York Times. Ms Dargis: "Her youth and apparent ignorance locked the future queen in a welter of self-indulgence from which she had no reason to escape, or so Ms Coppola vainly tries to suggest... This is Ms Coppola's one idea, and it isn't enough." Mr Scott: "[H]ungry peasants and restless city dwellers who ultimately brought down the French monarchy are mainly a distant rumor, as the action takes place entirely within the hermetic world of the Bourbon court, with its intricate codes of behavior, its curious blend of idle hedonism and solemn purpose, its pervasive gossip and its obsession with fashion and appearance." This "description of the courts of Louis XV and XVI," he writes, "could just as easily apply to 21st-century Hollywood, a parallel that, in Marie Antoinette, is both transparent and subtle." Ultimately: "I for one am happy to lose my head over Marie Antoinette."

Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian: "Ultimately, it makes for a baffling and historically obtuse film, in which the inner lives of Marie and Louis remain opaque. But it is carried off with tremendous visual and dramatic style: a movie that shimmers like a beguiling mirage." But for Xan Brooks, "If ever a movie deserved to be thrown to the mob, it is this one. The fact remains, however, that booing at Cannes tends not to make a blind bit of difference to a film's chances."

For Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, "the general feeling is very Danceteria 1988.... Coppola lacks the committed, demented genius Baz Luhrmann brought to Moulin Rouge, and when Marie Antoinette isn't being crazy and decadent it becomes a bit too pretty, proper and trivial for my taste."

As Coppola chats with journalists, indieWIRE's Brian Brooks listens in.

Matt Dentler: "Dunst is okay, but Jason Schwartzman steals the show as Louis XVI."

George the Cyclist at Rashomon: "There is not a hint in the world that the guillotine awaits her."

Updates, 5/26: "[T]he boos may have helped Coppola's film, creating a controversy that demanded the taking of sides," suggest Mary Corliss for Time. "If the film wins a big prize here at Cannes, Coppola can thank the naysayers." As for her own take, "Coppola's approach is piquant, and it could be fun in a five-minute Saturday Night Live sketch, but it does not sustain a two-hour treatment."

"[F]abulously frothy," writes Sheila Johnston in the Independent. "It's pure eye candy, a dazzling mood piece with little historical analysis, and drew boos and cheers in almost equal measure. I loved it."

Roger Ebert on the boo-ing controversy: "So did those who boo perhaps have a Yankee accent? Or British, Italian, or Austrian? Who can say? The important point is that the film was not hated. The daily 'critics' jury' of Screen International, a cross-section of nine international critics, gave it 2.44 points out of a possible 4; it’s tied for fifth out of 14 films. In another poll, Michel Ciment rated it worthy of the Palme d'Or."

Update, 5/27: In the Los Angeles Times, Deborah Netburn rounds up reactions from American bloggers and French papers.

Updates, 5/28: Jason Solomons in the Observer: "This is a funny, beautiful and, yes, cool film, blending fashion and pop with subtle comments on celebrity, emptiness and excess.... In its fin-de-siecle mood and beauty, it reminded me of Gus Van Sant's Last Days. In terms of pure, lavish enjoyment, it stands apart in this unremarkable competition."

A "metaphor for contemporary stardom, or for la Coppola's own position as pampered Hollywood royalty?" asks Jonathan Romney in the Independent. "But as an essay on the dangers of conspicuous expenditure, the film was something of an own goal - the cake budget alone must have been astronomical."

Gary Meyer, blogging for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, had a splendid time.

Meanwhile, Ronald Bergan notes that Mops, the dog, has won an award.

Andrea Feldman worries that Coppola's "protagonists' continued muteness - and by extension, her own - is looking more and more like an unfortunate combination of artistic limitation and sheer directorial laziness."

Posted by dwhudson at May 24, 2006 9:54 AM