Product Details

• Actors: Swank, Walken, Pryce, Baker
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: November 12, 2002
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00003CY5R
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,003 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

For all its earnest intrigue, historically accurate references, and elaborate set design, The Affair of the Necklace is best enjoyed as a comedy of Hollywood errors. The court of late-18th-century France is ruled by Marie Antoinette (Joely Richardson), whose confidence and favor is yearned for by Jeanne de la Motte-Valois (Hilary Swank), a young woman stripped of her title and orphaned at a young age. As flashbacks repeatedly remind the audience, Jeanne is essentially pure at heart even as she takes up with a court gigolo (Simon Baker) and enacts the intricate scheme from which the title is drawn. Soon embroiled in Jeanne's plan to win back her rightful place in the world are her avaricious husband of convenience, Nicolas (Adrien Brody); the soon-to-be-disposed-of Marie Antoinette; the salacious Cardinal Rohan (Jonathan Pryce); a necklace of questionable taste; and a host of other players. All the makings for a hilarious romp (à la Ridicule) are in place, but director Charles Shyer, with his lavish budget in tow, wants the film to be taken seriously. Only Christopher Walken, in a hilarious turn as the fraudulent soothsayer Count Cagliostro, sees through the facile script and relishes his part in what will no doubt prove a colossal flop. --Fionn Meade

From The New Yorker

Visual hooey from the director Charles Shyer about an eighteenth-century French noblewoman (Hilary Swank) who attempts to lie her way to greater wealth. Swank's laborious performance (she's too naturalistic an actress for such haughty manners) and the ham-fisted dialogue (delivered, mysteriously, with an English accent) sink the film into the lush folds of bad costume drama. The cast includes Joely Richardson and Jonathan Pryce surrounded by sets of such museumlike stateliness that the actors seem afraid to touch anything. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Someone, please strangle her with that necklace, July 15, 2002

By	Leah M. Brown (Anchorage, Alaska USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Affair of the Necklace (DVD)

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.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reclaimed Honor, December 8, 2001

By	"ithaca4e" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This is a wonderful film; one with talented acting, surperb cinematography, and a well fitted contemporary music score. Sadly, I'm not as sangine about the prospects for this film's popularity as a previous reviewer. It's not the film's fault, but rather the fault of the majority of the popular viewing public who may not relish finely made historical dramas that contain such Machiavellian intrigue, mixed with the struggle for personal vindication. This is a film that will be mainly appreciated by a more knowledgeable and educated audience. I would suggest that a brushing up on the social and political history of late 18th century France would be helpful in adding to the richness of experience that this film has to offer.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Falsification of History., July 5, 2006

By	JB "MeanCreek" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Affair of the Necklace (DVD)

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"...