Review of The Queen of Versailles (2012) by Kenneth L — 26 Mar 2015

This is a curious case: a well-made, compelling documentary about shallow, awful people. The movie follows the Siegels, who apparently own the largest timeshare company in the world, and are obscenely wealthy on an almost unimaginable scale.

When the filmmakers first started shooting the film in early 2008, the Siegels were on top of the world - they were currently building what would have been the largest house in America, since their current enormous mansion somehow wasn't big enough.

But then, in the middle of filming, the financial crisis of 2008 happened, and a couple of years later they were in (for them) dire financial straits, with their business laying off thousands of employees and on the brink of going bankrupt entirely.

While the filmmakers - who totally efface their own presence and provide no explicit commentary one way or the other on their subjects - do a good job of presenting a nuanced, human, even sympathetic portrayal of these people, I was nevertheless by the end of the film dying to see this rich old bastard and his trophy wife and their bratty kids get the Funny Games treatment.

Which, funnily enough, leads into my next review.