Title: A Little Chaos
Director: Alan Rickman
Starring: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman, Stanley Tucci, Helen McCrory, Steven Waddington, Jennifer Ehle.
‘A Little Chaos marks Rickman’s second film after his 1997 directorial debut ‘The Winter Guest.’ The 2014 British period drama is the second collaboration of Rickman and Winslet after their 1995 film ‘Sense and Sensibility.’
Love blooms amid the Sun King’s gardens in 17th-century Versailles: A Gallehault indeed, the project that engages two talented landscape artists at Louis XIV’s palace of Versailles.
Sabine de Barra (Kate Winslet) is a fictional proto-feminist figure of lower-class gardener, who shakes up the ordered world of the king’s landscaper in chief, Maître Le Nôtre (Matthias Schoenaerts). Their love story will be opposed by his scheming wife (Helen McCrory), nevertheless despite, Sabine’s tragic back-story and hurdles along the way, love will conquer all.
In defiance of the movie’s visual splendours, it is never as engaging as you might hope, partly because of the predictable storyline and partly because a disappointingly static Schoenaerts, who is no match for the soulful Winslet. The court scenes are more entertaining and Rickman is delightfully wry as Louis. Cherry on top is Stanley Tucci playing the flamboyant brother of the king, the Duc d’Orleans, and Jennifer Ehle, who is touching as his mistress. However the predominant chaos that prevails is how the characters do not connect with each other and prevent the audience from connecting with them.
Technical: B
Acting: A+
Story: C+
Overall: B-
Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
