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IF ONLY a trailblazing woman had helped to design the stunning gardens at Versailles, the location of this film.
Dream on — A Little Chaos is instead a pretty predictable historical romantic drama.
Kate Winslet gives an earthy and passionate performance as Sabine De Barra, the strong-willed and independent landscape gardener, who is hired in 1682 by the great Andre Le Notre, (Matthias Schoenaerts), who created the park at Versailles, to build one of the main gardens at King Louis XIV’s new palace.
Their clash of styles — hers of chaos, his of order — leads to a blossoming romance which fails to get the pulse racing due to Schoenaerts stiff portrayal.
This is Alan Rickman’s second directorial outing in 18 years and he orchestrates proceedings rather like he acts, with a slow and meticulous deliberation which is the film’s major problem.
It’s painfully slow and is just saved by Winslet’s verve and her pithy encounters with Rickman as the Sun King and Stanley Tucci, hilarious as his overly flamboyant younger brother Philippe, Duc d’Orleans.
While the film does capture the opulent extravagance of Louis XIV’s reign and the social constraints and hypocrisies of life at court, the finished garden, magnificent as it is, doesn’t reflect Madame De Barra’s wild and exciting nature in any shape or form.
