(UK, 116 min.)
Dir. Alan Rickman, Writ. Alison Deegan, Alan Rickman, Jeremy
Brock
Starring: Kate Winslet, Matthias
Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman, Stanley Tucci, Helen
McCrory.
Programme: Galas (World Premiere)
 |
| Photo courtesy of TIFF. |
Hat’s off to the Toronto International Film Festival. The
TIFF folks pick a winner with their closing night selection of Alan Rickman’s
latest film, A Little Chaos. This
rousing comedy is one of the most pleasant surprises of the Festival. It’s an
utter treat to end the fest on a high note of escapism and exuberance.
Rickman delivers a delightful comedy with A Little Chaos as Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts join him in spirited take on the revolutionary gardens at the Palais de Versailles. Winslet stars as Sabine de Barra, a headstrong gardener with an out-of-the-box approach on landscaping. Her green thumb clashes with the orderly planning of King Louis XIV (Rickman)’s chief landscape architect, André Le Notre (Schoenaerts), but Le Notre sees her as the right man for the job when her plans invite a little eclecticism to accent the opulence of Versailles. Everyone speaks English with British accents even though Versailles sits in France, but Rickman never shies away from having fun with this revisit to the past. A Little Chaos thankfully never takes itself too seriously, so audiences should permit the liveliness of film let escapism work its charm.
A Little Chaos is
a bouncy comedy of manners in the vein of Tom
Jones as the lavish period production accentuates the stiffness of the life
at court to which Sabine is an outsider. The manners make A Little Chaos extra sexy, too, for the passion of cultivating the
land and building this extravagant outdoor empire balances the masculine and the
feminine as Sabine and André work in harmony. Winslet’s charming performance
finds great chemistry with everyone else in the lively ensemble from Stanley
Tucci as a dandy of the court to Jennifer Ehle as a subtly spirited mistress.
Winslet finds her best match with Rickman, though, when Sabine unsuspectedly
drops in on the King as he enjoys the decadent roses of his empire’s creation.
Winslet and Rickman convey the loss their characters escape by digging in to
their passions, humanizing these historical figures with their shared fondness
for earthly pleasures.
Rickman crafts both a lively comedy and an exquisite period
film as A Little Chaos spoofs courtly
manners with jovial wordplay and manners. The costumes by Joan Bergin are gorgeous
and provide fancy dressings for the comedy—Sabine sports the silliest opening-scene
hat this side of Rose DeWitt Bukater—while the lively score by Peter Gregson
adds to the whimsical spirit of Sabine’s tale. A Little Chaos is effervescently bubbly despite the corsets.
A Little Chaos
features several dramatic turns in its 116 minute running time—the film could
use a little trimming—including one enthusiastically directed sequence in which
Sabine rushes to save her garden from a flood surging through a tampered aqueduct.
Winslet goes in Titanic mode as
Rickman plunges Sabine into an epically crafted sequence that dangles the
heroine above rapid waters as she proves herself worthy of the court. The
sequence shows Rickman’s adeptness at balancing the camera with his actors’
skills, although A Little Chaos is
very much an actors’ picture, and the riveting flood of the scene lets the film
flow nicely into unexpected dramatic turns that reveal Sabine’s fears and
inadequacies that give her such fiery spirit. The latter act revelations might
come a bit too late in the game, thus inviting notes of tonal chaos, but
Winslet’s dramatic chops keep the film on course as Rickman gives a few
close-ups in which to shine as the film crosscuts between Sabine’s memories of
her lost family and her present-day grief that comes rushing out like the
waters at Versailles.
Winslet’s charming performance makes A Little Chaos consistently enjoyable, but Sabine also makes the
film an appropriate choice to cap off a festival that has consistently
showcased strong female leads throughout the programming selections. The film
puts at its core the folly of assuming women and men cannot excel at the same
tasks. A Little Chaos defines Sabine
by her passions, whether they be for gardening or for Le Notre, and infuses the
rooms of Versailles with a modern sensibility. This delightfully bubbly escape
is a refreshing comedy with which to end the Festival. It's a lot of fun.
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
A Little Chaos
screens:
-Saturday, Sept. 13 at 6:30 pm at the Princess of Wales
-Saturday, Sept. 13 at 8:00 pm at Roy Thomson Hall
-Sunday, Sept. 14 at 9:00 am at Scotiabank 2
Please visit www.tiff.net
for more information on this year’s Festival.
