A Little Chaos (2015)

Purely Joyful Movie!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Blistering performances.

One of the last big films that Alan Rickman was involved in before his untimely death, A LITTLE CHAOS was also directed by the famous British actor, although his direction is middling at best. This is a low key romance set in the court at Versailles under Louis XIV, the Sun King, played by Rickman himself in support. The main thrust of the story is a romance between gardener Kate Winslet and a landscape artist in the king's employ. I found the whole thing hard to swallow. The romantic scenes feel cheesy and overblown and Winslet walks around with a funny expression on her face the whole time, like she's just smelt something terrible. The film's setting is sufficiently opulent and the supporting cast isn't bad, although I wish more had been made of strong actors like Jennifer Ehle and Danny Webb who are little more than window dressing.

The setting of the movie is appropriately 18th century, the way the characters act so too. They even seem to speak (mostly) like it too: sometimes they construct long, florid sentences, and sometimes the king takes his wig off and talks about money.It is not a glitzy romance, because the romance is suitably subtle (it thus also reflects the period). The romance is conducted, until near the end, almost entirely in subtext. Is it a perfect picture of 18 century France? Probably not, but, like the Gardens of Versailles, which are the true main character of this thoughtful drama, they have enough rough edges to feel real.

This is often passed over in silence but many workers died during those titanic (no pun intended) works:sometimes crushed under blocks ,they had to drain the swamps:a suicide because of the mosquitoes who transmitted marsh fever ,in other words,Paludism:men fell like flies.Saint-Simon talks about wagons of corpses ;they forced the workers into this living hell ,they had to live on the spot and were not allowed to see their wives and kids anymore ;some of them rebelled and threw blocks onto the foremen from the scaffolds ;the king called on the army.Many men were sentenced to death and hanged .Les Jardins Du Roy,it's a paradise (as depicted by the Sun King himself in the movie),but it's also that.Let's be lenient for the historical mistakes :Le Nôtre was 25 older than Louis XIV -and was not the vivacious handsome landscape gardener who woos Madame De Barra .He would not begin,in the kingdom of France , his letter with the word 'dear"!!Madame De Barra is pure fiction :one cannot imagine,at the time ,a female landscape architect -think that a hundred years later ,mathematician Sophie Germain had to take a male pseudonym to be able to continue her work on prime numbers- is thoroughly implausible ;it takes all Mrs Winslet's talent to make the character endearing.On the plus side ,in spite of an obvious lack of means (we are in the grandiose court of the Sun King,all the same!) ,there's an interesting depiction of the atmosphere of the courtiers;It's the first time I've seen a portrayal of Philippe D'Orleans ,Monsieur Frère Du Roi ,in accordance with historian Philippe Erlanger's book,which was not so in previous "Vatel" ,let alone the "Angélique Marquise Des Anges" saga : he is gay but his second wife ,La Princesse Palatine depicts him as " a brave man at war ,generous with the defeated ";actually they mutually agreed they would sleep apart,after she gave birth to heirs .A nice cinematography(superb finale) ,good acting by the whole cast ,let's forget history,and let's not deny ourselves a good moment.

We're told it's a sin to speak ill of the dead. Unfortunately, when reviewing Alan Rickman's 17th-century costume drama, A Little Chaos, committing such a sin might be necessary in order to convey the sheer awfulness of the late thespian's and concomitant director's project. Please don't construe that my intent is to disparage Mr. Rickman in general—quite the contrary, he was one of the finest actors of our time, who handled a vast range of roles most often with the highest aplomb.Here, unfortunately, he not only made the mistake of acting in this turgid drama but contributed as one of the co-writers to the screenplay. The story was conceived by one Allison Deegan who somehow got the idea that there was much drama in the creation of the grand gardens at Versailles during the reign of King Louis IV in France. The focus is on landscaper Monsieur André Le Nôtre who designed the gardens and enjoyed the patronage of King Louis throughout his life. Unfortunately, Le Nôtre was pushing 70 when the film's narrative begins in 1682. Instead, Deegan transformed Le Nôtre into a stud half the real character's age and the handsome Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts was conscripted to play opposite Kate Winslet as Sabine de Barra, an independent landscaper who is hired specifically to build a fountain surrounding a small outdoor ballroom out in the middle of nowhere.Sabine is a completely fictional character and the idea of woman working as an independent landscaper at that time is laughable. But Rickman was delighted with the idea. As quoted by Susan King in the L.A. Times, "There would be no woman with a profession at that time," Rickman noted, adding that he loved the idea of "putting a completely fictitious character in the middle of a known bit of history." As we slog through the proceedings (waiting for the forgone conclusion of the Versailles landscaping triumph), we must endure Winslet in the wish fulfillment plot of a feminist pioneer that never existed. Dull second act machinations include Sabine being rebuffed by laborers who don't want to work with a woman, one of Le Nôtre's former job applicants offering to help, and Sabine's clever creation of a pump to divert water from a river to the fountain and back.Romance between Le Nôtre and Sabine is postponed after Le Nôtre's displeasure over Sabine's decision to place plants in the garden outside of his ordered design. The spat between the two landscapers reflects the historical conflict between order and chaos, prevalent in landscape architectural circles at the time.The lugubrious plot continues to pitch forward and we are introduced to King Louis IV and his court. The King's brother, Duc Philippe d'Orleans, played by Stanley Tucci, is introduced as an effeminate bon vivant-bisexual, but also married to the German Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine. Tucci's character provides some atmosphere but does little to advance the plot.Rickman's King Louis IV turns out to be a rather low-key, unexciting good guy. When Sabine mistakes him for a common gardener, the King plays along and isn't upset with her for not recognizing him. He takes such a liking towards her, that she's invited to the court at Fontainebleau.Alex von Tunzelmann, writing in the The Guardian, notes another historical faux pas: "There is a painfully overwritten scene about aging women being like roses who lose their bloom, delivered for the benefit of Louis's mistress Madame de Montespan (Jennifer Ehle), who is being passed over for the implicitly younger and fresher Madame de Maintenon. This is not only bad, but wrong: in real life, La Maintenon was five years older than La Montespan."Nonetheless it's Montespan who introduces Sabine to the King and gives him a four-seasons flower, inspiring a conversation on the rose and its life cycle, a metaphor as Wikipedia tell us, "intended to warm him toward his mistress."If there's an antagonist here, it's Le Nôtre's wife, Françoise, who believes in sex outside marriage but only if she's on the receiving end. She has her Cruella de Vil moment when she visits Sabine and insists that Le Nôtre's interest in her is only a whim. What's more, two goons she's hired open flood gates, destroying all of Sabine's hard work. Le Nôtre is able to get out of the relationship with the evil Françoise, after finding a glove belonging to her at the flood site, implicating her in the dark deed. This is the dark moment at the end of the second act and we've waited an inordinate time to get to it.The road back of course has to be the consummation of the love between Le Nôtre and Sabine. This in turn allows her to confront the repressed memories of the long-ago death of her husband and young daughter, killed in a carriage accident. Sabine's project is finally completed and there's a big celebration. Game, set, match!There isn't one iota of humor in A Little Chaos and the actors go about their business with grim faces. Schoenaerts has little to do as the handsome landscaper and Winslet is unconvincing as a feminist heroine who we know never existed. Rickman fares little better as a darker side is never really suggested.Score this as a vanity project and an unfortunate swan song to a great actor's career. A Little Chaos does have good costumes so see it for that if you must see it at all.