Farewell, My Queen
Cohen Media Group | Release Date: July 13, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 12, 2012
Other films about Marie Antoinette have had their moments, but Benoît Jacquot's Farewell, My Queen is the first to give a real sense of what it must have felt like to live inside that palace as the walls were caving in. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 12, 2012
Matching the strength of these actresses and their personal drama is the film's masterful sense of time and place - the way it makes us feel that this was how it was during four pivotal days in July 1789 as the wheels came off the French monarchy. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 12, 2012
Benoît Jacquot's tense, absorbing, pleasurably original look at three days in the life and lies of a doomed monarch. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsAug 10, 2012
Richly photographed and featuring an attractive cast, Farewell, My Queen is a layer cake of royal pleasures, rote protocols and revolutionary politics. For skeptics who thought this story had grown stale, let them eat their words. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJul 19, 2012
Benoit Jacquot's engrossing film tells a story we know well, seen from a point of view we may not have considered. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoJul 10, 2012
Control is the operative element in Benoît Jacquot's work, with the main caveat being that when someone has it, someone else does not. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungJul 10, 2012
Historical drama set in the early days of the French revolution is intelligent Euro eye candy at its most lavish. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 2, 2012
Seydoux, no doubt best known for her kickboxing catfight with Paula Patton in "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," gives a quiet, watchful performance, suggesting fealty for her lady but also a strong independent streak. Read full review
75
Washington PostStephanie MerryJul 26, 2012
The foreboding and chaos contrast neatly with the lavish costumes and sets. Versailles takes on the feel of a gilded fortress, behind which the serving class hopes to hide. But money can't buy everything, including, in this case, security. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasJul 11, 2012
Working from Chantal Thomas' novel, Jacquot doesn't entirely scrape the gloss off this love triangle, which plays neither as a florid bodice-ripper nor as emotionally complex as it might have been. It stays on the surface, but at least that surface is gorgeous. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJul 26, 2012
One of the movie's strengths is how we see the revolution - or, rather the anticipation of it - not from the perspective of royal or radical but courtier and servant. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJul 12, 2012
Whether accurate or not, it's certainly entertaining to watch regal intrigues through the eyes of lady-in-waiting Sidonie (Léa Seydoux). That Jacquot handles the action so lightly is a credit, considering that it takes place during some of the tensest moments of the French Revolution. Read full review
60
MovielineStephanie ZacharekJul 12, 2012
The picture coasts along quite nicely on the strength of its contemplative sensuality, its macaron colors, and the exquisite beauty of its three chief actresses, Léa Seydoux, Virginie Ledoyen and Diane Kruger. Oh, and there's nudity in it too, not to mention lesbian undertones – or are they overtones? Read full review
60
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonJul 10, 2012
The pleasure of Jacquot's film is in watching various strains of discreet, heated, and deluded passionate attachment performed. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichJul 10, 2012
Once the rote plot takes over - the tension brought on by the film's you-are-there verisimilitude quickly devolves into soapily overwrought theatrics. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 25, 2012
Manages to be both overwrought and strangely lacking in drama, staggering under the deadening weight of an uninvolving central character. It is a shame, because many of the elements were in place for something much more compelling. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithJul 13, 2012
Jacquot's lavish décor and costumes are like the perfume the women use instead of bathing: They may cover up the willful carelessness at the center of the project, but it's still there. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJul 11, 2012
Benoît Jacquot's film is shackled to a blah bourgeois leftism. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangJul 10, 2012
A well-observed but emotionally muted costume drama that might well have been titled "My Week With Marie Antoinette." Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 12, 2012
The story refuses to combust; it's a strangely unsatisfying combination of bloodless observations and unresolved sexuality. Read full review
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