Movies
The Affair of the Necklace
Skulduggery in and around the court of Louis XVI, based on fact, with interpretive leeway. So stuffy and stilted a costume piece ("How skillfully you play the rogue. Yet even you cannot mask such impenetrable loneliness") that it approaches parody. When Christopher Walken turns up in the part of Cagliostro, the union is sealed. (And the Cardinal's red cushion is surely meant to evoke Monica Lewinsky's famous remark about "Presidential kneepads." And evoke titters, too. ) It can't help much to have an overreaching director, Charles Shyer, whose specialty has been contemporary light comedy: Baby Boom, Father of the Bride, I Love Trouble. One of the things that seems to be parodied is the notion of a classy encore for a recent Academy Award winner, namely Hilary Swank of Boys Don't Cry. She was more believable (if not a lot more) as a man than as an 18th-century French countess. Jonathan Pryce, Joely Richardson, Simon Baker, Adrien Brody. 2001.
— Duncan Shepherd
Reader Rating:
- MPAA Rating: R
