Review of The Queen of Versailles (2012) by Metamotivcritic — 02 Aug 2012

This movie could so easily have been a big, broadside send-up of the the foolishness of tasteless, nouveau-riche materialism--and there IS a good degree of foolishness and tastelessness about the building of the Siegal's version of Versailles--but instead the couple/family, particularly the wife Jackie come off as somewhat sympathetic characters, caught up in pursuing a somewhat perverted, but nevertheless understandable and common version of the American Dream (one that you can identify in countless families across the US and elsewhere) , only doing so to a laughable, outrageous degree.

.Jackie has voluntarily taken on the role of (college-educated) Barbie-doll trophy wife and baby-maker (if not real mother) who wants terribly much to please her workaholic, inattentive husband who in turn sees himself as the "pulled-myself-up-by-the bootstraps" bread-winner who happens to have fallen on hard times.

((His apparent sexism isn't overplayed in the movie, and the reported lawsuit against him by a former employee for sexual harassment isn't even mentioned,) The irony, of course, is that the couple doesn't seem to have a clue that when the recession hits and the banks try to take away their property, this is pretty close to what they themselves have been doing to their clueless time-share clients for years, and hence they are just as subject to the vagaries of capitalism as are the unsuspecting clients (and servants) on whom they've made their fortunes.

They seem to believe (or rationalize) that they have "done good," but in the end they are the butt of the same joke as the rest of us--the illusion of the (materialistic, consumption-obsessed)) American dream.

And this is what makes The Queen of Versailles an exceptional movie.