This lovely looking but overly allegorical tale of intrigue and garden design in the court of King Louis XIV badly needs pruning
Alan Rickman takes the helm as director and the throne as King Louis XIV in this muddled romantic drama set just as the Sun King declares the creation of the Gardens of Versailles in the 1680s.
Rickman’s sonorous baritone rolls across the manicured gardens and echoes about the decadent halls but not nearly enough - every time he's off screen, A Little Chaos tends to wilt and we are left with the rather pained and worthy romance which blossoms between leads Kate Winslet and fast-rising Belgian star Matthias Schoenaerts.
Winslet plays Sabine De Barra, a maverick landscape gardener who rebels against the fussy order and symmetry of accepted design in her work and prefers to let nature run wild and do the talking.
She catches the eye of the King’s head gardener, the enigmatic André Le Notre (Schoenaerts), who, much to the chagrin of the male-dominated royal court, hands her the contract to design a water feature and outdoor ballroom in the King’s epic vision of earthly paradise at Versailles.
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It sucks De Barra into the Louis' celestial orbit. Reputation and lineage is everything but this lowly worker becomes a real curio, a blast of fresh, perfumed air among the petulant and vain courtiers and hangers on.
Merde! She really is a humble font of simple, earthy wisdom who isn't afraid to muck in down in the garden but who also charms the court and the King with her rather strained analogies about how plant-life and garden design are really lessons in how we should live our lives.
Like a big budget episode of Grand Designs, A Little Chaos certainly looks wonderful and Rickman, who plays a remarkably benevolent version of the Sun King, lets his camera linger on the gardens, the stately houses, and the filigree and finery of the costumes (another brilliant job by Joan Bergin).
Winslet and Schoenaerts are clouded in a luvvie-dovey fug, a prancing Stanley Tucci is hugely irritating as the King's extravagant brother, and screenwriter Alison Deegan’s script is far too allegorical for its own good; I half expected Peter Sellers as Chauncey Gardner to appear from behind a nice line of rhododendrons and utter a blindingly simple insight that would leave the King dumbstruck.
Better still - Withnail & I's Uncle Monty - in breeches and full flock coat - should really have been on hand to declare that he happened to think the cauliflower more beautiful than the rose.
Alan Corr
