How Pruned Was My Garden

In 'A Little Chaos', Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet turn French history into a British period piece

Alan Rickman has only directed two films now, and the last one was in 1997. Well, he’s been pretty busy in the meantime. Of course he has: He’s Alan fucking Rickman. Which is to say that I’ll be grading him on a curve here. Like screenwriter Alison Deegan, who originated A Little Chaos, movie director Rickman hasn’t had much practice at this particular craft. That’s a hindrance but not a deal-breaker.

 

Because, look: If you’re going to make a movie about landscape architecture in the 17th century, it seems like a good idea for it to spend some time at the grounds of the palace of Versailles. So way to go, A Little Chaos. Points for thinking big. Also, being at Versailles means you’ll need somebody to play King Louis XIV. Hey, how about Alan Rickman? If nothing else, it’s like watchability insurance. 

 

Matthias Schoenaerts plays the king’s actual chief landscape architect, André Le Notre, who lurks around the grounds like he’s waiting to be photographed for the cover of a romance novel. Fair enough, but he’s actually got an important job to do, for which an assistant is required. That would be Kate Winslet, as the widow Madame Sabine de Barra, whom Le Notre hires on account of her agreeably modern feminist pluck. As he discovers by inviting himself into her own garden, she has a certain taste for the untamed. About that book cover: Got room for two?

 

“The work will be original but balanced; the responsibility will be mine,” Le Notre soon finds himself explaining to a seemingly unconvinced king. “Yes, it will,” Louis replies, holding a death stare as perhaps only Rickman can. What’s interesting is how versatile that same unblinking stillness proves to be. This is Rickman’s genius: We’ve grown accustomed to the idea that his voice is the most interesting thing about him, but really, additionally, he is a great master of actorly eye contact. The movie’s best scene (arguably also its most contrived) is an eventual encounter between Louis and Sabine in the garden, where at first she doesn’t recognize him, and he doesn’t want her to. In addition to being a sort of Sense and Sensibility reunion, it’s also a satisfying and unhurried moment in which a pair of consummate costume-drama players reveal their characters to be fully living human beings. Everything else? Well, you know, grading on a curve. The supporting cast is expectedly well-credentialed. As the king’s bisexual brother, Stanley Tucci turns on the camp autopilot. It’s fun to watch but forgettable too.

 

Meanwhile, there remains the very gently pressing dramatic questions of whether our Sun King will have a nice enough outdoor space and whether its requisite classical order will tolerate “a little chaos.” As if to apologize for how boring that might be, those machinations of pulp romance, and some palace intrigue, continue apace. The movie maintains its poise for a while before finally careening into flashbacks and hysterical guilt over a terrible turn of events in Sabine’s past. Rest assured, though, the garden does grow.




A LITTLE CHAOS

Directed by Alan Rickman

With Rickman, Winslet, Schoenaerts and Tucci 

Violet Crown Cinema

R
117 min.


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