Farewell, My Queen (French: Les Adieux à la reine) is a 2012 French drama film directed by Benoît Jacquot and based on the novel of the same name by Chantal Thomas.
In July 1789, the French Revolution is rumbling. Far from the turmoil, at the Ch teau de Versailles, King Louis XVI, Queen Marie-Antoinette and their courtiers keep on living their usual carefree lives. But when the news of the storming of the Bastille reaches them, panic sets in and most of the aristocrats and their servants desert the sinking ship, leaving the Royal Family practically alone.
Which is not the case of Sidonie Laborde, the Queen's reader, a young woman, entirely devoted to her mistress; she will not give her up under any circumstances. What Sidonie does not know yet is that these are the last three days she will spend in the company of her beloved Queen…
Subtitled.
Awards
- Nominated Golden Berlin Bear Award 2012
- Won Cabourg Romantic Film Festival, Best Actress Lea Seydoux
- Won César Awards for: Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design 2013
- Nominated for César Awards for: Best Film, Best Director, 5 other nominations 2013
- Won Prix Louis Delluc Award, Best Film 2012
Farewell My Queen Reviews
“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.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Benoit Jacquot's engrossing film tells a story we know well, seen from a point of view we may not have considered.” 3.5 out of 4 stars, Roger Ebert
“The complex triangle at the dark heart of his film, set against the surging social change of a nation, makes for both a superb historical epic and a compelling human drama.” sbs.com.au
“Benoît Jacquot's tense, absorbing, pleasurably original look at three days in the life and lies of a doomed monarch.” New York Times
“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.” LA Times
“Jacquot injects a welcome shot of immediacy into the costume drama proceedings with an off-center vantage point and dynamic camerawork.” The Atlantic
“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.” San Francisco Chronicle