CANNES, France--Sofia Coppola has brought Marie Antoinette to the big screen, using rock music in a sumptuous portrayal of a misunderstood young queen, but some viewers at the Cannes film festival were less than impressed.
Kirsten Dunst plays the title role as an amiable and naive teenager who is lost in the stifling constraints of the French court, where she was brought from Austria at the age of 14 to marry the heir to the throne.
There were some boos for "Marie Antoinette" when it was shown to the notoriously fussy press corps in Cannes, although Coppola argued that much of the negative reaction probably came from the local critics and journalists.
"I know we're in France doing Marie Antoinette, and it's not the safest thing you could do," she said at a roundtable discussion, when asked about the reaction.
She also told a news conference: "I think it's better to get a reaction. Either people really like or really don't like -- I think is better than a mediocre response."
Early online reviews were mixed.
Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter praised many of the performances as well as the visual feast, calling the film "a harmonious blend of history and contemporary perceptions." But he did question the use of modern music.
Dave Calhoun of London's Time Out magazine said the picture was "pretty but quite empty," and criticized the director for making only a fleeting reference to the turmoil outside the walls of Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution.
"Considering Coppola's attempt to shoe-horn the French revolution into the film's last ten minutes, her disengagement is more than lazy; it's a little offensive. It may be hip, but it ain't history."
MISUNDERSTOOD QUEEN
The film is based on Antonia Fraser's 2002 biography, which challenges the once popular interpretation of Antoinette as callous and extravagant as the population of France went hungry.
"Let them eat cake," the infamous phrase that has been attributed to her in reference to an impoverished populace, is portrayed as a malicious invention in the film, which some historians believe was actually the case.
"To me, before I worked on this story she was a symbol of decadence and frivolity," Coppola, watched by her director father Francis Ford Coppola, told the news conference.
"It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette and find out more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14, and how she developed in the court of Versailles."
Coppola's is a costume drama with a modern twist, with striking bright pinks and yellows lighting up the screen and, most notably, New Romantic tracks interspersed with opera and chamber music from the 18th century.
When Antoinette and her entourage sneak out of Versailles to attend a masked ball in Paris, people dance to a pop soundtrack as if at a modern day disco. One of the songs featured is Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy."
The 35-year-old director takes a sympathetic view of Antoinette's passionless marriage, which the court blames on her and not the king, played in the film by Coppola's cousin Jason Schwartzman. The movie ends before her execution in 1793.
"Marie Antoinette" is Coppola's third feature and her biggest to date with a budget estimated at $40 million. Her first two movies, "The Virgin Suicides"--also starring Dunst--and "Lost in Translation" were critically acclaimed.
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