The Affair of the Necklace
This handsomely mounted but frustratingly nontransporting historical film often seems like an overblown lesson in a matter that — considering all of the other, more powerful forces at work in the years leading up to the French Revolution — seems comparatively picayune.
Perhaps it was more important than we can perceive today; Napoleon did, after all, list the scandal among the top three contributing factors to the class rebellion. But it was the filmmakers' job to vivify the incident powerfully enough to convince us of its significance. A general air of petulance and decadence fails to give the piece much resonance.
Hilary Swank does her best with the role of the justifiably scheming Comtesse Jeanne de la Motte-Valois. But the role, as written by John Sweet, is too geared toward surface impulses and tactical busywork to permit the Oscar winner to find the tragic grandeur in the character. The comtesse does definitely have a lot to deal with, however. Orphaned as a child and stripped of her noble rank in the process, she suffers a marriage of convenience to the philandering Count Nicolas de la Motte (Adrien Brody) in order to gain access to Marie Antoinette's court. But her efforts to gain the attention of the queen, played by Joely Richardson, fail to connect. So, in order to pursue her goal of regaining her birthright, Jeanne teams up with a high-class gigolo (Simon Baker, of TV's "The Guardian"), and they hatch an immensely convoluted plot.
It's clear that director Charles Shyer had a good time orchestrating all of this chicanery. But while you can see it trying to jump off of the screen, Shyer fails to make that nasty exuberance palpable for audiences, perhaps because he has been conditioned to thinking along the lines of commercial pablum.
"The Affair of the Necklace" is rated R for French Revolution violence, simulated sex, female and male nudity and occasional use of strong profanity. Running time: 120 minutes.