The Affair of the Necklace

Infobox Film
name = The Affair of the Necklace


image_size = 200px
caption = Original poster
director = Charles Shyer
producer = Charles Shyer
writer = John Sweet
narrator = Brian Cox
starring = Hilary Swank
Jonathan Pryce
Simon Baker
Adrien Brody
Joely Richardson
Christopher Walken
music = David Newman
cinematography = Ashley Rowe
editing = David Moritz
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = November 30, 2001 USA
January 11, 2002 UK
runtime = 118 minutes
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0242252

"The Affair of the Necklace" is a 2001 American historical drama film directed by Charles Shyer. The screenplay by John Sweet is based on what became known as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, an incident that helped fuel the French populace's disillusionment with the monarchy and, among other causes, eventually led to the French Revolution.

Plot synopsis

Jeanne de Saint-Rémy de Valois, orphaned at an early age, is determined to reclaim her royal title and the home wrested from her family when she was a child. When she is rebuffed by Marie Antoinette and her efforts to achieve her goal through legal channels fail, she joins forces with conceited and well-connected gigolo Rétaux de Villette and her wayward, womanizing husband Nicholas to concoct a plan by which she will earn enough money to purchase the property.

King Louis XV had commissioned Parisian jewellers Boehmer and Bassenge to create an extravagant 2,800-carat, 647-diamond necklace he intended to present to his mistress Madame du Barry, but he died before it was completed. Hoping to recoup its high cost, its creators try to persuade Marie Antoniette to purchase it but, knowing its history, she declines.

Jeanne approaches debauched libertine Cardinal Louis de Rohan and introduces herself as a confidante of the Queen. For years the Cardinal has yearned to regain the Queen's favor and acquire the position of Prime Minister of France, and when he is reassured by occultist Count Cagliostro that Jeanne is legitimate, he allows himself to be secuced by her promise she can intervene on his behalf. He engages in correspondence with the Queen, unaware her letters to him are forgeries and his to her never are delivered. The tone of the letters become very personal, and the cardinal, convinced Marie Antoinette is in love with him, becomes ardently enamored of her.

Jeanne allegedly arranges a meeting between the two in the garden at the Palace of Versailles. Portraying the Queen is Nicole Leguay d'Oliva, an actress bearing some resemblance to her. Heavily cloaked, with her face in the shadows, she agrees to forget their past disagreements. The Cardinal believes his indiscretions have been forgiven and he once again is in the Queen's good favor.

Jeanne advises the Cardinal the Queen has decided to purchase the necklace but, not wanting to offend the populace by openly buying such an expensive item, she wishes him to do so on her behalf, with a promise to reiumburse him for the cost by the Feast of the Assumption. The Cardinal gladly agrees and presents the necklace to Rétaux de Villette, believing him to be an emissary from the Queen. Nicholas de Lamotte sells some of the diamonds, and Jeanne uses the profits to buy her family home.

The Cardinal begins to panic when Jeanne disappears and his correspondence with the Queen comes to an abrupt end. His concern is put to rest by an invitation to visit the palace on the Feast of the Assumption, at which time he assumes he will be repaid in full and named Prime Minister. Instead, King Louis XVI, who has been made aware of his machinations by Minister Breteuil, has him imprisoned in the Bastille. Soon to follow are everyone else involved in the plot. A trial finds the Cardinal, Count Cagliostro, and Nicole Leguay d'Oliva innocent of all charges. Rétaux de Villette is found guilty and banished from France. Jeanne is found guilty and whipped and branded before being imprisoned, although she later escapes to London where she publishes her memoirs and regales the locals with her tales. Eventually Marie Antoinette, assumed to be a key player in the affair by an increasingly angry and restless populace, meets her fate on the guillotine. We learn via an epilogue Jeanne died after falling from her hotel room window and was rumored to have been killed by royalists.

Production notes

Filming locations included the Palace of Versailles, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Alincourt, Compiègne, and Paris in France, and St. Barbara Church, Lednice, and Valtice in the Czech Republic. Interiors were filmed at the Barrandov Studios in Prague.

The soundtrack included "Movement I: Mercy" by Alanis Morissette and Jonathan Elias, "Le Réjouissance - Allegro" and "Allegro from Sonata" by Georg Friedrich Händel, "Beatus vir" by Claudio Monteverdi, "The Four Seasons, Summer - First Movement" by Antonio Vivaldi, "Aire A6 in G Minor" by William Lawes, "Exsultate, Jubilate" and "Requiem Aeternam, Dies Irae" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and "Heidenröslein" by Franz Schubert.

The film was a financial disaster, earning only $430,313 in the US [ [http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2001/AFNLC.php "The Affair of the Necklace" at The Numbers.com] ] .

Principal cast

Critical reception

In his review in the "New York Times", A.O. Scott called the film a "swooshy, bejewelled period melodrama [that] drags and meanders when it wants clarity and clockwork, and bogs down in hazy, vague emotions . . . The earnest ineptitude of the picture makes it all the more painful to watch gifted actors . . . waste gravity and conviction on roles that could be saved only by parody . . . The only actors who relieve the tedium are the ones who decline to take the proceedings seriously. Mr. Brody overacts with a loose bravado somewhere between "Tom Jones" and "Blackadder", and reminds us that all that lechery and dissolution could be fun sometimes. And then there is Mr. Walken, who seems to be enjoying himself a great deal at the movie's expense. He is outfitted with facial hair that appears to have been made of industrial vinyl and a hairdo that owes more to science fiction than to costume drama. Every time the camera moves his way, it seems to interrupt a deep reverie, and as soon as Mr. Walken opens his mouth your overwhelming impulse is to burst out laughing." [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9403EFD7143DF933A05752C1A9679C8B63 "New York Times" review] ]

Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said the film "only works if it understands Jeanne is one villain among many, not a misguided heroine . . . But the storytelling is hopelessly compromised by the movie's decision to sympathize with Jeanne. We can admire someone for daring to do the audacious, or pity someone for recklessly doing something stupid, but when a character commits an act of stupid audacity, the admiration and pity cancel each other, and we are left only with the possibility of farce." [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20011225/REVIEWS/112250301/1023 "Chicago Sun-Times" review] ]

In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Edward Guthmann observed, "It's the kind of part that Cate Blanchett or Kate Winslet could play blindfolded, but with Swank in the role - surrounded by British actors who outclass her, saddled with plummy dialogue - it becomes an event, a test, an elaborate stunt . . . [She] makes a noble effort to inhabit this role and prove that "Boys Don't Cry" wasn't an isolated piece of luck. She's not a bad actress, but she's out of her league here and her tendency to underplay - as if she were afraid of the material and didn't want to risk anything flamboyant or bold - makes her performance seem tentative, half-felt . . . I had a hard time staying interested in "Affair of the Necklace", which plays like the cinematic equivalent of a paperback bodice-ripper with embossed type. The plot has its intrigues and surprises, and characters get trumped in ways we can't always foresee, but as historical drama it's never convincing." [ [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/11/30/DD163154.DTL "San Francisco Chronicle" review] ]

Bruce Diones of "The New Yorker" called it "visual hooey" and added, "Swank's laborious performance (she's too naturalistic an actress for such haughty manners) and the ham-fisted dialogue (delivered, mysteriously, with an English accent) sink the film into the lush folds of bad costume drama." [ [http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/the_affair_of_the_necklace_shyer "New Yorker" review] ]

In "Variety", Todd McCarthy stated, "French history is reduced to the level of American tabloid-style gossip in [this] staggeringly misguided stab at making the past come alive by people who have absolutely no feel for period filmmaking. Banal at best and laughable at worst, pic seems like it was inspired by the Monica Lewinsky scandal . . . With the partial exception of Jonathan Pryce's prideful but vulnerable Rohan and Joely Richardson's witty Marie Antoinette, there is little credibility in the performances, least of all in Swank's Jeanne . . . many modern actresses . . . simply aren't convincing in pre-20th century roles, and by the evidence here, Swank is one of them. She seems hamstrung by the demands of matching the proper diction of her mostly British co-stars, and evidently didn't get much help from Shyer in figuring out how to convey seductiveness onscreen or in creating a characterization of any nuance or complexity." [ [http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117916432.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0 "Variety" review] ]

Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" graded the film C and commented, "Swank isn't great at clipped refinement. There's something eerily earnest about her - the blank modern voice, the eyes aglow with sincerity - that renders her all wrong for a costume drama pitched in the arched-eyebrow invective mode of "Dangerous Liaisons". Then again, it doesn't help that the liaisons here feel about as dangerous as a portfolio of mutual funds . . . "The Affair of the Necklace" is slipshod rather than sly. There's no fury to the movie, repressed or otherwise, which may be why when the Revolution arrives, it has all the impact of a guillotine with a deadly dull blade." [ [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,186325,00.html "Entertainment Weekly" review] ]

In "USA Today", Claudia Puig said, "French decadence has its virtues: There's the sumptuous seductiveness of the period, with its satin and lace costumes, which more often than not here get torn off in ornate boudoirs. And laudably, the lush film was made for a reasonable $20 million. But that's not enough to sustain a movie, particularly one that promises a juicy romp but delivers a plodding trudge. The affair may have raised eyebrows all over 18th century Paris, but it's not likely to elicit more than a shrug from 21st century moviegoers." [ [http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/2001-11-30-affair-of-the-necklace.htm "USA Today" review] ]

Maitland McDonagh of "TV Guide" stated, "This sumptuously designed film . . . has all the ingredients of a juicy historical romp. But it's bloodless, fussy, and undermined by Hilary Swank's stiff, one-note performance . . . [she] is painfully uncharismatic, leaving Christopher Walken, in the minor role of occultist Count Cagliostro, to decamp with any scene in which he appears. His performance may not be historically credible, but it's hugely entertaining: Would that the same were true of the film overall." [ [http://www.tvguide.com/movies/affair-necklace/review/135268 "TV Guide" review] ]

Awards and nominations

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and the Satellite Award for Best Costume Design, but lost to "Moulin Rouge!" in both instances.

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0242252|title=The Affair of the Necklace
*rotten-tomatoes|id=affair_of_the_necklace|title=The Affair of the Necklace
*metacritic film|id=affairofthenecklace|title=The Affair of the Necklace
*mojo title|id=affairofthenecklace|title=The Affair of the Necklace