Movie review: 'A Little Chaos'

Alan Rickman as the Sun King eclipses eclipses the rest of the cast in this period drama which revolves around garden renovations at Versailles.

"They must love you for your eloquence and fear you for your demeanour," intones Alan Rickman as Louis XIV, in an outfit containing enough brocade to upholster several sofas. Not many men with long chestnut curls, rouged cheeks and high-heeled gold shoes arouse fear in the hearts of men and longing in the loins of women. French kings used to, possibly because they could chop off your head if you resisted. Even at 69, and without any power to invoke the death penalty, so does Rickman. Maybe it's his voice.

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Rickman's role in A Little Chaos, which he also directs, is supposed to be secondary to the main parts played by Kate Winslet and Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, but his portrayal of the Sun King outshines almost everything, with the possible exception of Stanley Tucci's joyous cameo as the king's brother.

Winsome Winslet plays landscape gardener Sabine de Barra, who has been commissioned by master gardener André le Nôtre (Schoenaerts) to construct an outdoor ballroom with elaborate fountains at the king's new palace in Versailles. The year is 1682 and André has been tasked by Louis to create the most beautiful formal gardens known to humanity (or off with their heads).

André is in love with order and precision. Sabine likes to let nature's wildness intrude on her garden compositions (hence the title), so naturally they first argue and then fall in love. The romance is sweetly played out, but the most powerful scene in the film is when Sabine stumbles on a wigless king taking a private moment in an orchard after the death of his wife. She mistakes him for a fellow gardener, which leads to some delightful dialogue.

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Although loosely based on real events, A Little Chaos does not pretend to be a truthful period drama. Anachronisms abound, both in the script ("I'll call in some favours") and the accoutrements (any woman appearing at court with uncoiffed hair in those days must have lost her head).

Sabine is a fictional feminist ahead of her time, hammering in posts and clawing at branches when her lazy labourers - perhaps unionists ahead of their time - knock off early. In work she faces opposition from her supercilious peers and in love from André's nasty wife (played by Helen McCrory in a Disney-villainish way), but there is never a visceral sense of danger.

Visually, this is a splendid film. The garden scenes, the court scenes and the love scenes are all breathtakingly framed by cinematographer Ellen Kuras. It is a welcome relief from the mindless action, silly slapstick and dark brooding of other recent releases, but it does not hang together quite well enough to be a great film. That said, it is undoubtedly the best film you will ever see about French gardeners in the 17th century. It will make you want to go home and plant things.

Rating: 3/5