Who needs history lessons when you have film and IMDB to give you all of the information that you could ever want.

Before this all I knew was that Marie Antoinette said something like 'Let them eat cake' and had her head chopped off shortly afterwards

Despite the films very slow pace, covered off buy the cool sound track and the early sight of Kirsten Dunst half naked early on, I did at least learn a lot about history and events leading up to the French revolution, well the bits around the royal family.

To start with, they married young, very young and the lived in huge houses. More importantly and, from over point of view, they did every thing with an audience, from getting up in the morning to giving birth. How many women would be up for that these days? Possibly it was as close to reality TV that they were ever going to get.

Another big thing that did come across in the film, despite the fact she was Austrian royalty who then became French royalty, a very powerful country in Europe at the time, she was really no different to teenagers of today, even thing was about booze, clothes, gambling and partying. She just wore really posh dresses as opposed to a tracksuit, don't think they had been invented in those days or she might have.

The love of spending carried on forever, the partying only really stopped when she had a kid, thats one big difference between then and now, but the time she had her first most ladies leading the life she was would have been knocked up quite a few times.

While all the above is true, its a slow film but the sound track is excellent as is Kirsten Dunst, the review is slightly mocking

Very different side of Marie Antoinette is shown, possibly a more accurate one than is often portrayed. It shows how a young and very innocent and naive girl was thrust into a position that was very difficult for her, a husband, himself very young, having no idea what he should do with a woman and all the gossip that was associated with her being Austrian, not producing a child quick enough and also the fact her behavior was very different to that of French aristocrats. With the death of her father-in-law so young her and her husbands very young succession certainly didn't help her, later on in the reign, in the eyes of the public. She was unaware of the issues around money in France and the King was far to easily swayed, of course the citizens were not aware of all this.

A good way of getting some idea of what happened up to the revolution, though its not the fastest film I have ever watched. The sound track certainly helps

2.5 stars, interesting from a history point of view and learning a bit but not worth going out of your for.