marie antoinette the journey by antonia fraser

The marriage is eventually consummated to some degree but Antoinette continues to report to her mother that she isn't yet pregnant. For months, the marriage remains unconsummated because her husband, Louis, is apathetic about performing his 'duty' to produce an heir to the throne. She soon faces a serious problem in her marriage. She is soon married by proxy and makes the wedding trip to France, where she meets her young husband. This happens to be the case when her older sister, pledged in marriage to the Dauphin of France, dies and leaves Antoinette to fill that role. Her childhood is filled with instruction based on the probability that she is destined for a royal marriage to cement an alliance between countries and families. Don't bother if you're looking for any kind of content like the vacuous queen, there's no there there.Antoinette is the fifteenth child of the Austrian King and Queen. If you love color, beautiful costumes and scenery, this is the film for you. But in order to do that, characters would have to have been developed, and there didn't seem to be any interest in that. In a way, it's a shame, because this film could have given us great insight into Marie Antoinette by having a very young woman play the Queen as these events swirled around her. There are five exciting minutes or so toward the end of the film. Some of this is touched on or mentioned in passing most of it is left out. Marie Antoinette's life was full of drama - her liaisons with Axel von Fersen, the Affair of the Necklace, her husband's medical problem which prevented the couple from having children for so long, the revolution, the family being taken to prison, and the guillotine. The only thing Coppola omitted was Marie's story, so the movie is instead about the above-mentioned teen partying, shopping, being unfaithful, wandering the grounds, while giving us a look at royal tradition, gorgeous costumes and dazzling scenery. Norma Shearer was very good as Marie Antoinette, but she wasn't a kid.

In actuality, that's probably pretty close to the truth about this historical figure. I can only guess that the reason for making this film was to show a teenage Queen of France cavorting with her girlfriends and shopping until she dropped while remaining oblivious to the plight and unhappiness of the French people.

The other stars include Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn, Judy Davis, Marianne Faithful and Molly Shannon. Kirsten Dunst is 'Marie Antoinette' in this anachronistic 2006 film directed by Sofia Coppola.

Marie antoinette the journey by antonia fraser