There's been a revolution. Not long ago, Sofia Coppola reigned supreme, feted with a golden statuette for Lost in Translation. Now, she's feeling the torches and pitchforks of an angry mob. Critics booed her Marie Antoinette at Cannes, and she's been called the Paris Hilton of directors. But Instead of piling on with more abuse, we figured it might be time for some alternatives.
1. The Queen
Less champagne, more sparkle. Out in theaters now, Stephen Frears' richly engaging look behind the facade of the House of Windsor is everything that Coppola's Versailles charade isn't: layered, witty, moving, with real insight into the traps and trappings of power and privilege. Against all expectations, it's much easier to fall in love with Helen Mirren's staunch Elizabeth II than with Kirsten Dunst's 18th century ditz.2. CQ
If you're jonesing for a delicious Coppola movie with style to burn, a tortured artist, a gorgeous star, a film-loving sensibility, and a bravura performance by Jason Schwartzman, you'll love Roman's underrated 2001 delight. With Jeremy Davies, Gerard Depardieu, and Angela Lindvall.3. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Never mind Gang of Four: if you're in the mood for a postmodern deconstruction of the historical costume drama, Michael Winterbottom's Sterne-adaptation is wildly adventurous and successful. Both films feature Steve Coogan in a wig, but only Winterbottom lets him cut loose.4. Barry Lyndon
Unlike Coppola, who wants you to fall in love with her shopaholic heroine, Stanley Kubrick keeps his distance from his characters, and his 1975 Thackeray adaptation is stronger for it. If you've seen it before, see it again: nobody has ever turned a more incisive eye on the 18th century. With Ryan O'Neal.
5. The New World
When Marie Antoinette moves into her fake hamlet, Coppola shows dreamy shots of the Queen returning to nature, touching the grass and feeding the little lambs. In Terence Malick's masterful The New World, Pocahontas completes the opposite journey, from wild child of the forest to corseted Englishwoman. If it's the constrained roles of women inside and outside civilization that attract you to Marie Antoinette, give Malick's lyrical epic a try instead.