CHICAGO – There is no better time to take in a stage play that is based in U.S. history, depicting the battle between fact and religion. The old theater chestnut – first mounted in 1955 – is “Inherit the Wind,” now at the Goodman Theatre, completing it’s short run through October 20th. For tickets and more information, click INHERIT.
Film Review: ‘Farewell, My Queen’ Paints Seductive Portrait of Encroaching Doom
CHICAGO – Is there any actress in the world today with more seductive and transfixing eyes than Léa Seydoux? She often tilts her head in a direction that allows her to peer up from beneath lowered brows. Stanley Kubrick would loved to photograph her. Yet her radiant orbs are capable of conveying more than mere menace. She can appear frighteningly vulnerable and coldly calculating within the same take.
Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
In Benoît Jacquot’s quietly entrancing picture, “Farewell, My Queen,” Seydoux’s eyes smolder with desire, even as budding tears threaten to disrupt her unwavering gaze. Based on Chantal Thomas’s book of the same name, “Queen” revolves around a fictitious love triangle in Versailles that was dismantled during the last crucial days of the French Revolution. Though it often plays like the final episode of an epic miniseries, Jacquot and his cast makes the most of every moment.
Read Matt Fagerholm’s full review of “Farewell, My Queen” in our reviews section. |
Seydoux plays Sidonie Laborde, a young servant girl who takes pleasure in her duties as a personal reader for Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger). Her infatuation with the Queen is so strong that it has blossomed into idolization. The Queen seems to sense this, and stokes the flames by treating her as a prized companion. In the film’s early moments, I was waiting for Jacquot’s film to develop into a lesbian variation on Sofia Coppola’s feminist Antoinette saga. Yet whereas Coppola’s 2006 “Marie Antoinette” was a lighter, more frivolous affair tinged with bitter poignance, Jacquot’s film is clearly aiming for a more grounded sense of realism, while using the Queen’s rumored lesbianism as the launching pad for its tale. Though Antoinette appears to have feelings for her adoring servant, her true emotions are held in check. It isn’t until the clock starts ticking away on her untimely fate that Antoinette finally decides to open up to Sidonie about the great love of her life: the Duchess Gabrielle de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen of Jacquot’s “A Single Girl”). When Bastille falls, it has the same effect on Versailles that the iceberg had on the Titanic. Over the course of three frantic days, the palace’s inhabitants scramble for lifeboats as outraged voices start clamoring for their heads. This chaotic backdrop may suggest a more explosive and suspenseful picture, but the film’s most compelling drama takes place within the mind of its heroine.
Léa Seydoux stars in Benoît Jacquot’s Farewell, My Queen.
Photo credit: Carole Bethuel/Cohen Media Group