Review of Farewell, My Queen (2012) by John M. P — 08 Jan 2013

Benoit Jacquot's look at life in Versailles during the fall of the Bastille is an intimate yet distant affair which never allows the audience to know where it is positioned.

Although advertising campaigns suggested otherwise, (largely due to the star power of Diane Kruger) upcoming actress LÃ (C)a Seydoux plays the lead, a young servant called Sidonie Laborde who reads to the queen, Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). It is unclear whether the film is supposed to simply be an account of life at Versailles told through the eyes of the vacant Sidonie, or whether it is an unsettling demonstration of how idolatry (in this case, Sidonie's unwavering devotion to her queen) affects a person's identity.

Shot beautifully and accompanied by a magnificent soundtrack, the films main weakness is in the interaction between the three lead characters, the two aforementioned women and Gabrielle De Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). Rather than focusing on the relationship between the queen and Sidonie, which is one of the films main intrigues, we are instead presented with a supposed love affair between the queen and De Polignac which is of no relevance to the audience as we are supposedly following Sidonie's story and we are left confused and cold as we are offered little or no backstory to these characters relationship, apart from suggestions as to the nature of it.

Overall, the film loses it's potential greatness in the lack of direction that the plot and the characters take, distancing the audience in what could and should have been an intense and claustrophobic film. Kudos to LÃ (C)a Seydoux though, as she manages to bring character to an otherwise dead and dreadfully underwritten.