Prismark10 Kate Winslet plays the fictional landscape gardener Madame Sabine de Barra, hired to create a water feature at Versailles. Her work defies conventions of the time and Madame Sabine falls for the master designer André Le Nôtre even though she is haunted by her past.The film was directed by Alan Rickman, who also co-wrote it and plays the Sun King. The problem is this is a slight tale and boring. It actually could had done by being more chaotic and wilder.Winslet has little chemistry with Matthias Schoenaerts, she does better when she bumps into King Louis who pretends to be a gardener.

dierregi A rare gem in the world of contemporary movies, this story has sympathetic characters. I thought they all but disappeared from the screen. It is purely fictional, but I like to believe it could have happened. Schoenaerts plays Andre Le Notre, the real landscape architect who designed the park of Versailles for King Louis XIV. Andre is interviewing other landscape gardeners to help him with the job, among them the only woman, fictional Sabine De Barra (Winslet).They don't meet so cute, but Le Notre is intrigued and Sabine is hired. In the society of the time, Sabine is a bit of a low class oddity who manages to make friends in high places. Admitted to court, she attracts attention and curiosity for her beauty and skills, but she also attract Le Notre's wife jealousy.Le Notre is unhappily married with his unfaithful Madame, but Madame is well connected at court and sort of blackmails him into staying with her. However, that will not stop the slowly burning romance between Andre and Sabine. Sabine holds back not only because Andre is married but also because of her mysterious tragic past.We finally get to know Sabine's sad history during one of the most moving scenes of the film. Sabine talks to the court ladies and discovers that they also share tragic losses, although at court it is forbidden to talk about death. Once able to face her past, Sabine can finally move into her future.Winslet is really good as Sabine and Schoenaerts seems particularly gifted for the role of the strong, silent, lover. He had similar roles in The Danish Girl and Suite Francaise and was equally good. Their scenes together are moving and tender, without any of the artificial slickness or aggressiveness of contemporary romances.Rickman playing Louis XIV as a rather melancholic man who takes a fatherly fancy to Sabine. The music is not overbearing period and the costumes are absolutely fantastic. The final scene looks like is taking place in the real, still existing, rock ballroom. Great movie, a balm for the soul.

Turfseer We're told it's a sin to speak ill of the dead. Unfortunately, when reviewing Alan Rickman's 17th-century costume drama, A Little Chaos, committing such a sin might be necessary in order to convey the sheer awfulness of the late thespian's and concomitant director's project. Please don't construe that my intent is to disparage Mr. Rickman in general—quite the contrary, he was one of the finest actors of our time, who handled a vast range of roles most often with the highest aplomb.Here, unfortunately, he not only made the mistake of acting in this turgid drama but contributed as one of the co-writers to the screenplay. The story was conceived by one Allison Deegan who somehow got the idea that there was much drama in the creation of the grand gardens at Versailles during the reign of King Louis IV in France. The focus is on landscaper Monsieur André Le Nôtre who designed the gardens and enjoyed the patronage of King Louis throughout his life. Unfortunately, Le Nôtre was pushing 70 when the film's narrative begins in 1682. Instead, Deegan transformed Le Nôtre into a stud half the real character's age and the handsome Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts was conscripted to play opposite Kate Winslet as Sabine de Barra, an independent landscaper who is hired specifically to build a fountain surrounding a small outdoor ballroom out in the middle of nowhere.Sabine is a completely fictional character and the idea of woman working as an independent landscaper at that time is laughable. But Rickman was delighted with the idea. As quoted by Susan King in the L.A. Times, "There would be no woman with a profession at that time," Rickman noted, adding that he loved the idea of "putting a completely fictitious character in the middle of a known bit of history." As we slog through the proceedings (waiting for the forgone conclusion of the Versailles landscaping triumph), we must endure Winslet in the wish fulfillment plot of a feminist pioneer that never existed. Dull second act machinations include Sabine being rebuffed by laborers who don't want to work with a woman, one of Le Nôtre's former job applicants offering to help, and Sabine's clever creation of a pump to divert water from a river to the fountain and back.Romance between Le Nôtre and Sabine is postponed after Le Nôtre's displeasure over Sabine's decision to place plants in the garden outside of his ordered design. The spat between the two landscapers reflects the historical conflict between order and chaos, prevalent in landscape architectural circles at the time.The lugubrious plot continues to pitch forward and we are introduced to King Louis IV and his court. The King's brother, Duc Philippe d'Orleans, played by Stanley Tucci, is introduced as an effeminate bon vivant-bisexual, but also married to the German Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine. Tucci's character provides some atmosphere but does little to advance the plot.Rickman's King Louis IV turns out to be a rather low-key, unexciting good guy. When Sabine mistakes him for a common gardener, the King plays along and isn't upset with her for not recognizing him. He takes such a liking towards her, that she's invited to the court at Fontainebleau.Alex von Tunzelmann, writing in the The Guardian, notes another historical faux pas: "There is a painfully overwritten scene about aging women being like roses who lose their bloom, delivered for the benefit of Louis's mistress Madame de Montespan (Jennifer Ehle), who is being passed over for the implicitly younger and fresher Madame de Maintenon. This is not only bad, but wrong: in real life, La Maintenon was five years older than La Montespan."Nonetheless it's Montespan who introduces Sabine to the King and gives him a four-seasons flower, inspiring a conversation on the rose and its life cycle, a metaphor as Wikipedia tell us, "intended to warm him toward his mistress."If there's an antagonist here, it's Le Nôtre's wife, Françoise, who believes in sex outside marriage but only if she's on the receiving end. She has her Cruella de Vil moment when she visits Sabine and insists that Le Nôtre's interest in her is only a whim. What's more, two goons she's hired open flood gates, destroying all of Sabine's hard work. Le Nôtre is able to get out of the relationship with the evil Françoise, after finding a glove belonging to her at the flood site, implicating her in the dark deed. This is the dark moment at the end of the second act and we've waited an inordinate time to get to it.The road back of course has to be the consummation of the love between Le Nôtre and Sabine. This in turn allows her to confront the repressed memories of the long-ago death of her husband and young daughter, killed in a carriage accident. Sabine's project is finally completed and there's a big celebration. Game, set, match!There isn't one iota of humor in A Little Chaos and the actors go about their business with grim faces. Schoenaerts has little to do as the handsome landscaper and Winslet is unconvincing as a feminist heroine who we know never existed. Rickman fares little better as a darker side is never really suggested.Score this as a vanity project and an unfortunate swan song to a great actor's career. A Little Chaos does have good costumes so see it for that if you must see it at all.

nicholls_les I watched this through to the end in the hope that there would be an amazing ending or a twist. Anything to relieve the boredom from watching this drivel.Everything about it was awful. I did not believe any of the characters, I will overlook the Frenchman who spoke with a thick Northern English accent, but if this was an amateur play, maybe I could forgive it, but these are well known seasoned actors and no one seemed convincing at all.Kate Winslet was particularly dull, I am sure she was almost asleep in some scenes but the main problem was that nothing lifted the film from being so very dull.The sabotage scene was almost interesting, but even that was as wet as the garden project became.I cannot understand why anyone liked this dull, dreary, lifeless movie.