Culture

Rating: 4/5

1789. The people are rebelling. Versailles is about to fall. Marie Antoinette, wilfully blind to the chaos around her, spends her days perusing the 18th-century equivalents of Vogue and chasing her chambermaids. Proving there is life in the period drama still, Farewell, My Queen is a refreshingly modern take on the tired genre, dominated by performances from European A-listers Lea Seydoux (Mission Impossible) and Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds).

Sidonie (Seydoux) plays the Queen’s official reader, a commoner with the rare privilege of participating in her love-life and luxuries. As gossip swirls around the monarchy’s decline (and threats of Antoinette’s inevitable beheading), Sidonie finds herself increasingly drawn to Antoinette, with her sense of duty and obedience crossing into something far more romantic. Their quasi-romance takes place almost exclusively within the confines of the castle, giving it a sense of claustrophobia as well as tragedy.

This interpretation is no doubt racier than your usual 18th-century retread, but it’s also far from the “lesbian costume drama” some publicity has made it out to be. Instead, its creeping pace makes it an almost anthropological take on the monarchy’s dying days. We are thrust directly into the action with minimal detail, and the film’s main shortcoming comes from this ambitious attempt to blend romance, history and reality into one.

But while the drama takes extreme liberties with the true events, Seydoux’s and Kruger’s performances are so convincing that little else matters. They convey their status, depth and emotions through urgent whispers and glances, elevating the story from its soap-opera origins into something far more significant.