McD
15-01-2002, 23:50
Reportedly based on a true story, but never really feeling like it, The Affair of the Necklace is in all probability based on a heavily biased account of events set in 1780’s France. Another period drama about someone trying to advance in society beyond their means - so, just like Domestic Disturbance, we’ve been here before. It’s Hilary Swank this time, trying to reclaim her disgraced-and-executed family’s fortune. It doesn’t quite drown in the where-is-my-birth-rite self pity that marred the excellently filmed ‘The House of Mirth’, mostly by cutting to Swank’s cunning plan early in the game.
You just can’t help feeling that films like these are as formula as the Bruckheimer Blockbuster in their own way. As usual, you get a small group of well known and probably Oscar winning supporting players, with the obligatory lavish sets and costume design. Presumably the gamble for the hefty budget is the hope of a big Oscar pay off. There are at least five familiar faces here – six if you include the necklace salesman himself, the Rancour Keeper from Return of The Jedi. That ugly mug is hard to forget although his genes have partially redeemed themselves by ageing him far less in 20 years than Mark Hamill or Harrison Ford.
Swank does a reasonable turn as a tortured soul but is surely on the brink of being typecast – she’s turned up with a bruised face in her last three films! But the damage done here (initially at least) is no big deal. Life on a knife-edge is hardly evident (odd given the setting and the events being depicted) and in reality should have been closer in spirit to ‘Elizabeth’. Which reminds me – the scene where Marie Antoinette (Joely Richardson) tells the desperate Rancour Keeper that she has no interest in his business-crippling necklace, only to collapse laughing with her handmaiden on his exit, is straight out of Blackadder II! But Joely is no Miranda, and you can at least be thankful that her limitations aren’t overly on show. Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of she with the ‘let them eat cake’ catchphrase wont be fooled by the twist finale either!
The scores in these films are pretty predictable too. This one seems strangely reminiscent of Gladiator in places (hey, it’s all ‘period’, right?), and only one blast of W.A. Mozart is heard throughout. Maybe that’s a good thing, as god forbid we are over-reminded of other events taking place in the same year - Antonio Salieri plotting the demise of his fellow pop idol, some 700 miles away whilst in the employ of Marie Antoinette’s brother. That would only serve to lower your opinion of the film even further, which does, in fairness, stand up well against the current crop of well-below-par general releases.
The only debt to the new wave of Moulin Rouge style period filmmaking is the inclusion of Marie Antoinette belting out the Elvis standard ‘(I Cant Help) Falling In Love With You’ in 18th Century Paris. In French. Quite possibly.
You just can’t help feeling that films like these are as formula as the Bruckheimer Blockbuster in their own way. As usual, you get a small group of well known and probably Oscar winning supporting players, with the obligatory lavish sets and costume design. Presumably the gamble for the hefty budget is the hope of a big Oscar pay off. There are at least five familiar faces here – six if you include the necklace salesman himself, the Rancour Keeper from Return of The Jedi. That ugly mug is hard to forget although his genes have partially redeemed themselves by ageing him far less in 20 years than Mark Hamill or Harrison Ford.
Swank does a reasonable turn as a tortured soul but is surely on the brink of being typecast – she’s turned up with a bruised face in her last three films! But the damage done here (initially at least) is no big deal. Life on a knife-edge is hardly evident (odd given the setting and the events being depicted) and in reality should have been closer in spirit to ‘Elizabeth’. Which reminds me – the scene where Marie Antoinette (Joely Richardson) tells the desperate Rancour Keeper that she has no interest in his business-crippling necklace, only to collapse laughing with her handmaiden on his exit, is straight out of Blackadder II! But Joely is no Miranda, and you can at least be thankful that her limitations aren’t overly on show. Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of she with the ‘let them eat cake’ catchphrase wont be fooled by the twist finale either!
The scores in these films are pretty predictable too. This one seems strangely reminiscent of Gladiator in places (hey, it’s all ‘period’, right?), and only one blast of W.A. Mozart is heard throughout. Maybe that’s a good thing, as god forbid we are over-reminded of other events taking place in the same year - Antonio Salieri plotting the demise of his fellow pop idol, some 700 miles away whilst in the employ of Marie Antoinette’s brother. That would only serve to lower your opinion of the film even further, which does, in fairness, stand up well against the current crop of well-below-par general releases.
The only debt to the new wave of Moulin Rouge style period filmmaking is the inclusion of Marie Antoinette belting out the Elvis standard ‘(I Cant Help) Falling In Love With You’ in 18th Century Paris. In French. Quite possibly.