Customer Reviews

Affair of Necklace [VHS]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I understand that historic episodes adapted into film must be changed to a certain degree in order to be viewable in the movie theaters.However, in this case, real History is far more interesting and complex than the horror they made when writting the script of this movie and this is why:
-In the movie, Jeanne de la Motte descended from the Valois royal family, and her wealthy father got killed because he wanted people to be free and he could lay claim to the French throne...False! In reality, Jeanne claimed to descend from an Ilegitimate son of Henri II of Valois(The Bastard of Angouleme) which means her father had no legal rights on the French throne.Moreover, her father was a drunk in real life and her mother was a prostitute.
-In the movie Jeanne also is presented as a victim of the Monarchy, by writting her memoirs. The movie doesn't mention however that Jeanne falsely implicated Marie Antoinette in the Affair of the Necklace and she blackmailed her up untill the revolution.The Queen was innocent of everything.
In other words, the movie presents a rather innocent almost angelic Jeanne de la Motte when in reality she was a far darker, more corrupted woman who never stopped intriguing untill the time of her death.
The only thing worth seeing about this movie are the costumes and sets: they are extremely accurate and they got the chance to film some scenes in Versailles which is very rare.
Let's hope Sofia Coppola makes this story more justice in her upcoming picture "Marie Antoinette"...

What a wretched piece of cinema. I mean, truly wretched. And the fault lies almost totally with Hillary Swank. She plays Jeanne de la Motte with such-over-the top mellodrama. She never seems to totally connect with the character, giving us this wide-eyed, fast-talking character that is neither compelling nor sympathetic.

What an utter shame. For she was surrounded by some true talent. The actor who plays Cardinal de Rohan is fantastic. In fact, all of the secondary actors and actresses do a decent job.

There's also the matter of the wildly inaccurate retelling of history. Clearly the writers and director wanted viewers to feel terribly sorry for poor little Jeanne. They perverted history in the telling of the story, casting Jeanne in the role of the poor, innocent, misused and discarded aristocrat who is justified in her actions. The truth was, Jeanne de la Motte was a whore and a thief, a con-woman who helped topple the monarchy and murder a queen. For more information on the affair of the necklace, read Simon Schama's book Citizens, or visit the award-winning website, Let Them Eat Cake.

The costumes in this movie are phenomenal. Truly eye candy. If it weren't for the wonderful sets and splendid costumes, this movie would have rated a ZERO.

This historical drama is very nearly fabulous - but just misses it. It is a famous tale of intrigue and scandal, one that lent fiery fuel to Marie Antoinette's bad reputation, which in turn led to her beheading. It is the story of Countess Jeanne St. Remy Valois, played by Hilary Swank in her first role after winning an Oscar for *Boys Don't Cry*. Perhaps the point was to see how Miss Swank could act while wearing a dress, but the results are mixed, to say the least. Made out to be completely sympathetic, the Countess sees her father murdered and their property taken from them, and she wishes to avenge the wrong done to them. Begging for an audience with the Queen (Joely Richardson *is* fabulous as Marie Antoinette), the Countess is rebuffed. Meanwhile, in an unrelated episode, the Queen's jewelers have designed a magnificent diamond necklace, but the Queen, though she allegedly covets the necklace, does not purchase it, leaving the jewelers in a tight spot. The Countess falls in with an attractive courtier and also forms an alliance with Cardinal de Rohan (played magnificently by Jonathon Pryce), who is out of favor with the Queen, and convinces him to buy the necklace to smooth things over between them. Of course, the Countess is planning on stealing the necklace so that she may live happily ever after. Through machinations such a stolen letterhead, mistaken identities and other deceptions, the story comes to a boil when the details of the scandal begin to see the light of day, and unravels the careers of everyone concerned (especially Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette). It is a gripping story in the right hands. Clearly director Charles Shyer's oeuvre is comedy, and he's written, directed or produced many fine ones, such as *Private Benjamin*, *Irreconcilable Differences*, *Father of the Bride* and *The Parent Trap*. But historical drama is not his long suit. The supporting cast, cinematography, costumes and art direction are superb and engaging, but Swank is the weak link in the equation. She is simply not skilled enough to handle the role - she is passionless and wooden, but fortunately there are many scenes without her that sizzle with drama. All in all, there is a great deal of entertainment here, and if you though Hilary Swank was good in *Beverly Hills 90210*, then you'll love her in this.

The Affair of the Necklace is an entertaining and lavish retelling of the infamous scandal, in the years just prior to the outbreak of the French Revolution, that invloved a disgraced countess, a lecherous cardinal, the Queen of France, and a fabulous diamond necklace.

Hillary Swank plays the Comtesse de la Motte Valois, the daughter of a disgraced and murdered nobleman who is obsessed with reclaiming her title and her lands. Though married to a rakish philanderer, she falls in with a handsome though disreputable courtier named Rateux de Villet and the two hatch a ploy to use the rich and influential cardinal Rohan to buy the necklace, supposedly for Marie Antoinette, but in reality so that the Comtesse can use the diamonds to buy back her estate and reinstate her family's reputation. Once the cardinal realizes he has been duped he sets out to bring down the conspirators, but before he can, he himself is accused of complicity in the affair, along with his shady and mysterious "mystic" advisor Count Cagliostro, played by an outrageously wonderful Christopher Walken. The ensuing scandal enflames the country as the public, already resentful of the extravagance and indifference of the aristocracy, blame the ostentaciously elegant Antoinette as the true architect of the affair. The resulting backlash over the scandal helps to ingnite the Revolution and sends Antoinette and Louis XVI to the guillotine.

The Affair of the Necklace has its faults, but overall it is engaging and beautifully filmed, with sumptuous costumes and lavish sets. Swank is a little out of her element as the noble Comtesse, but even her American accent and sometimes cheesy dialogue can be overlooked. Walken is over-the-top but enjoyable as the charlatan seer Cagliostro, Jonathan Pryce is excellent as the sleazy cardinal Rohan, and Joley Richardson gives a good performance in her role as Marie Antoinette. This is an enjoyable piece of historic drama.

This film tries to make a believable drama out of what was in fact one of the most hopelessly bungled con jobs in history. While the Affair of the Necklace did, indeed, help to blacken Marie Antoinette's reputation, it didn't do all that much new damage; as Hilary Swank's character remarks near the end of the film, the king and queen had already pretty much ruined the monarchy well before 1785-86, when the events of the story actually took place.

Overall the outlines of the plot are accurate in so far as the actual swindle is concerned, but the film has one unforgivable deliberate fault.

The historical Jeanne de Lamotte-Valois (to use her correct birth name, Jeanne de St-Remy) was indeed descended from one of the many illegitimate sons of the Valois king Henri II, who died more than 200 years before Jeanne got her hands on that necklace. Jeanne's ancestor was legitimized and created baron de St-Remy; his offspring used that surname and not the royal Valois name--Jeanne herself used it to give herself some social leverage, and then added it to her husband's surname, Lamotte. Otherwise the film's representation of Jeanne's background is false.

Nicolas de Lamotte was not a genuine count any more than Jeanne was the unfairly dispossessed daughter of a high-minded socially reforming baron killed by the government. Her father was a wastrel and drunkard who, before his early death, gambled away whatever was left of the family fortune (and it wasn't much to begin with). Jeanne had a brother and sisters, though none of them seems to have come to much good. Her mother was an illiterate peasant, not a member of the noble class.

All the folderol about Jeanne's idyllic childhood in the family chateau, and her determination to win it back, was apparently added by the film's writer and producers to whitewash Jeanne's otherwise disreputable story. Simply put, she was an adventuress and a con woman whose real social standing was typified by the ease with which she and her husband found a prostitute to impersonate the queen during the midnight meeting with Cardinal de Rohan in the gardens of Versailles.

While most of the events the film represents are accurate, the story thus rests upon heavily fictionalized foundations. The film's unevenness, however, is not exclusively for that reason.

Its main drawback is Swank, who lacks the dramatic presence for a film of this nature. She looks nothing like an eighteenth-century Frenchwoman and fails to create a remotely believable characterization of such a woman. Some of the other characters succeed rather better, especially the House Minister, Baron de Breteuil, and Jeanne's lover, Retaux de Villette, who forged the real queen's correspondence with Cardinal de Rohan (a third excellent performance).

Unfortunately the other weak spot here is Joely Richardson's Marie Antoinette. Not that Richardson is not a bad actress--for that matter, neither is Swank. But both are out of their element here. Richardson tumbles into every pitfall that awaits when as heavily-cliched an historical figure as Marie Antoinette is portrayed. Her performance gives the beleaguered queen no hint of humanity, though we know that the queen was in fact troubled by her unpopularity though she never understood how to reverse it. Richardson can be seen to much better advantage in the TV series "Nip/Tuck" and Swank in pretty much every other film she has ever made--just not this one.

Costumes, sets and photography are excellent across the board. But the sound track is dominated by the music of Georg Frideric Handel, a Germano-British composer who died nearly 20 years before the events in the film took and whose splendid music by the 1780s was hardly ever heard outside England. Marie Antoinette was fond of works by Haydn, Gluck, Mozart and-auugh!-Salieri, and their music would have been much more appropriate here than Handel's.

One not so very special saturday morning, I decided to watch this movie since it was about to start on HBO. And on this not so very special saturday morning, I was sucked into this not so very special movie.

Perhaps it was the haughty elegance of this period in time that made me watch this movie from start to finish. Maybe it was the dashing Simon Baker, or the intriging Adrien Brody. It was certainly not, I assure you, because of Hillary Swank.

Perhaps that isn't fair of me. After all, it would be a hard task to make such a controversial and not very admirable person in history someone you can be empathetic towards. For my part, I felt that Swank's character was not fiery enough to like, not pathetic enough to feel sorry for, and certainly not emotional enough to feel sad for. As for Simon Baker; one moment, a flirtatious gigalo who helps Swank through her scandalous plan. The next moment, he's a romantic hero sacrificing everything in the name of love. And Adrien Brody, an almost comical character that is vengeful and then willing to join the scandal about, oh, five seconds later. Marie Antoinette's protrail was well done, but suprisingly, not a key factor in the overall plotline. Why? As a whole the cast did a good job considering the script was dry and didn't give much for character devolpment.

The costuming was superb, the acting splendid at parts and drab at others, the truth bent and curled in hollywood's image. Overall, this is the perfect Blockbuster rental, but certainly not the perfect anything else.

This film is loosely based upon a true story. While Queen Marie Antoinette of France still held on to her head, she became embroiled in a scandal over a necklace. The scandal, in fact, contributed to the rise of the French Revolution and the demise of the monarchy in France.

The leading jewelers of the day, Charles Boehmer and Paul Bassenge, had wanted Marie Antoinette to buy an elaborate and very expensive, multi-looped diamond necklace, weighing approximately 2800 carats. This necklace, which had six hundred and forty seven diamonds, had purportedly been designed for Madame Du Barry, the mistress of Marie Antoinette's father-in-law, the late King Louis XV, and a woman she despised. Marie Antoinette was not at all interested in this necklace and made herself quite clear to the somewhat desperate jewelers, who had invested much of their capital in this necklace.

In the film, a young woman, Jeanne St. Remy de Valois (Hilary Swank), who called herself a Countess by virtue of her marriage of convenience to a certain rake, Nicolas de La Motte (Adrien Brody), wanted to get back her father's estates, which had been taken by the crown after he had been, she believed, wrongfully executed for his perceived political beliefs. She was obsessed with righting this wrong and regaining her family's lost honor.

When she was unable to secure that which she so desired, she took up with a court gigolo, Retaux de Vilette (Simon Baker). With his assistance, she concocted an elaborate scheme, rife with political intrigues, and secured possession of the notorious diamond necklace under the ostensible color of Queen Marie Antoinette's authority. This theft ultimately came to light, and she and her cohorts were arrested in this matter, although the necklace was never recovered. This would lead to a sensational trial, because her accused accomplice in the matter was none other than Cardinal Louis Constantin de Rohan (Jonathan Pryce), a prince of France.

The film, woodenly directed by Charles Shyer, centers around the character, Jeanne. Unfortunately, Hilary Swank is unable to carry the day. Her portrayal of Jeanne is one dimensional. She also seques back and forth between her obvious American accent and a pseudo-British one. To sum up her performance in a nutshell, it is sub-par. An otherwise excellent actress, she is simply out her element in this period film, because she is unable to overcome her contemporary veneer.

Of course, as she is the centerpiece of the film and fails, so does the film, no matter how well meaning the endeavor. Of course, she had help, as the script has its problems. There is very little tension for a film that is about one of the greatest thefts ever conceived. Not even the delicious performance of Jonathan Pryce, as the dissolute Cardinal de Rohan, can overcome some of the fundamental flaws in this film. Still, there are some intriguing moments in the film, and those who enjoy period pieces and historical dramas may get a modicum of enjoyment viewing it.

so long as you leave your mind in low gear I suppose. Its relationship to historical events is assuredly scanty at best, but who cares? If you are a costume drama/historical period aficianado, you will enjoy. And its three stars must be three of the best looking people on the planet, especially encostumed in the French style. Hilary Swank is a babe, dressed to the nines in ruffles and flourishes, with lots of great cleavage; Simon Baker was seemingly born with a head just made for the modeling of 18th century French haberdashery; and Adrien Brody, known to most of us for his Oscar-winning performance as an emaciated Polish pianist fleeing from the Nazis, spends this movie showing off a suprisingly muscular, hairy chest. And he looks great in those long tresses! Jonathan Pryce is a pro and knocks off the role of the corrupt, sensual Cardinal with aplomb. The plot admittedly requires one muster a larger measure of that "willing suspension of disbelief" than a serious movie should; but take it as a feast for the eyes---gorgeous settings, costumes and actors and you should find two hours of harmless pleasure here. This movie is a beauty without brains, but one is not always in the mood for French existentialism.

The script and story weren't too bad, if you can get past that our protagonist was seriously misrepresented to be a lady trying to gain back her past estates when the reality of history is Jeanne was just a schemer and con woman, albeit a bit likeable.
Her character was poorly played by a fabulous actress, Hilary Swank. The gigolo was the highlight performance of the film, and Robert Price as Cardinal Rohan was superb as always.
Christopher Walken didn't fit the film, neither did Joely Richardson or Swank. They seemed so oddly out of place.
If the screenwriters had made Jeanne just a little more like the lead protagonist/heroine in Philippa Gregory's WIDEACRE, you love to hate her and you love her, we all would have enjoyed the film better.
Something just wasn't right with this film; it didn't hit its mark.

As a long time Marie-Antoinette fan, I have studied closely her tragic story, particularly the infamous Affair of the necklace. When I saw the film poster a few weeks before the movie was actually released, I could barely hide my excitement.
I ended up tremenduously disappointed. If it had not been for the amazing costumes, the beautiful settings and Joely Richardson who plays a credible Marie-Antoinette (the 3 reasons why I am going to buy the DVD), I am not sure I would have watched until the end.
Let alone that the story is not historically accurate, the director never seems to know what he wants to make of his main character, Jeanne de la Motte (Hilary Swank). Is she the poor orphan trying to regain her tittle or the con artist who plotted to steal a stunning piece of jewellery for her own benefit? The script continuously struggles with those two options, and it reflects poorly on the end result.
The movie had the potential to match "Dangerous Liaisons" or "Ridicule". Instead, it turns into a farce, and not a credible one at that!