He is not trying to make a sweeping melodrama either. Writing for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab said that the director "doesn’t have any grand political statements to make. Though director Benoit Jacquot opts for the grand European style of Girl With a Pearl Earring rather than a modernist rereading à la Sofia Coppola's post-punk vision Marie Antoinette, the film has its own charm, a matter-of-fact treatment of lesbianism and 'magnifique' costumes and settings guaranteed to please Upper East Side patrons, all of which suggests a wide art-house release for this lavish French-Spanish coprod." IndieWire's Anne Thompson believed it was "an intimate and sexy period spectacle that takes us backstage at Versailles and into territory Sofia Coppola was not willing to go." Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter called Farewell, My Queen a "visual joy, even while its tale of a lower class girl at court infatuated with the Queen of France labors to say something relevant. Several reviewers compared the film to Sofia Coppola's 2006 production, Marie Antoinette. Reception įarewell, My Queen holds a rating of 67/100 on Metacritic. Farewell, My Queen opened in theaters in France on 21 March 2012, and was released on a limited basis to American theaters on 13 July 2012.
It was later shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival (19 April) and the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Film Festival (27 April) and as part of the L'Alliance Française French Film Festival, in Australia, in March 2013. The film opened the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012. Release ĭiane Kruger promoting the film at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. He also added to the plot the same-sex relationship between the Queen and duchess of Polignac he thought it might be possible, given women's strong relationships with each other in that time period. I could relate to her as a woman." While the actress Léa Seydoux is younger than the age of the lectrice character in the novel, Jacquot cast her as Laborde because "she brought this carnal dimension. Recognizing that many audience members had preconceptions of Marie Antoinette, Kruger approached the role by "trying not to judge her. The German actress Diane Kruger was cast as Marie Antoinette. After reading Chantal's feminist novel, Jacquot wanted to create a film from this perspective. She won the Prix Femina for her book in 2002. They adapted the script from the novel of the same name by Thomas.
Sidonie is stripped naked and then redressed in a green gown. This Sidonie does, despite a prior warning from one of the Queen's ladies in waiting. The Queen orders Sidonie to disguise herself as Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchess of Polignac, and serve as bait so that the latter can safely flee to Switzerland. She does not know these are the last three days she will spend by the Queen's side. She feels secure under the protection of the Royal Family. But Sidonie, a true believer in the monarchy, refuses to flee. When news about the storming of the Bastille reaches the Court, most aristocrats and servants desert the Palace and abandon the Royal Family, fearing that the government is falling. The routines are seen through the eyes of the young Sidonie Laborde, who serves Queen Marie Antoinette. In 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, the court at the Palace of Versailles still live their routines, relatively unconcerned by the increasing turmoil in Paris a mere twenty miles away.