The Affair of the Necklace (2001)

Simply Perfect

Powerful

Just what I expected

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

The true story seems to have been cleaned for the film, but it adheres to the historical account somewhat. Jeanne seemed to have been quite a liar in real life while Hilary is scrumptious and hautaine. Good story for the film, comedic at times.

for costumes, for the admirable work of Adrien Brody and Jonathan Pryce, for the effort of Hillary Swank to be credible in a role who is not real comfortable for her, for a lovely Marie Antoinette by Joely Richardson, for the decent way for present a legend in attractive manner. film of costumes and atmosphere, remembering Dumas more than the spirit of reign of Louis XVI, it is a beautiful film. and this is enough.

There's nothing wrong with the acting in this movie, but it's still largely a failure, and that because of the script, which meanders here and there, not keeping the characters consistent, not explaining things that need to be explained, etc. Primarily, it fails to make us care about Jeanne de la Motte. Yes, it's terrible that she lost her family and home when she was a child. But deciding to take advantage of the very naive Cardinal de Rohan to get enough money to buy back her family estate makes her unsympathetic and foolish as well, as we know she will not be able to take advantage of any momentary success she might have in her efforts to deceive the Cardinal. Too often, the characters' actions just don't make sense. Jeanne remains distant, despite the occasional efforts to elicit our sympathies for her.There's no reason to watch this movie, I'm afraid. It's slow moving and uninteresting.

The plot is very slight, which is a major part of the problem. The contemptuous way in which English is mixed with Yank is another part - for to actors, both supposedly French, to sound so anachronistic makes no sense. If they all spoke Yank, you could excuse it as a sort of Star Trek episode. If they all spoke English, you could perhaps concentrate on the plot and the acting. With the bizarre mixture (and the jarring anachronisms in speech) it made it painful to watch.The script was very poor. The actors did do their best to make it work, but it just wasn't credible dialogue. Of course, it was supposed to be anti-monarchy, no problems there, but to be so ham-fisted as to try to hammer this in at every stage by silly devices made one want to be a monarchist and cheer Marie Antoinette.