marie. antoinette

ok, so we watched the film last evening.....my spouse for the first time, as he had passed on our opening day trip to see it in nicholasville......and i was determined to pinpoint just why critics disliked it so......it could be the soundtrack.....though classical tunes would not have conveyed the avant-garde nature of marie's circle of bon vivants the way that new music does.......one does have the urge to tell the poor dear that she can turn all this around if she puts her mind to it.....but she is oblivious......as the youngest of 15 children would be, i suppose.....i read on wikipedia that her mm was horrified to discover, after she had been promised to the french dauphin, that marie could not speak french and had no knowledge of french/austrian history or world affairs.....so it should come as no surprise that she continued on with a decided lack of attention to politics.....and it should come as no surprise that her friends took advantage of her....financially and politically........such a sad tale of woe that should have ended differently.......speaking of ending differently, (a mansfield park reference, by the way...) i did finish my jane austen bio......a book that only an austen fan(atic) could possibly sift through.....such is the ilk of bios.....far too many facts and details and.....trivial asides......but these bits of this and that add up to a richer understanding of each of her 6 novels......every circumstance depicted happened to somebody that our jane either knew, or knew of.....i was pleased to learn that she did find acclaim in her own lifetime.....the prince regent read several of her books, and especially liked p&p......and she received letters from her fans.......i had always bene under the impression that most of her work was published posthumously and that she died feeling as if she had failed as a writer.....not so.....2 of her works were published after her death, but she did enjoy the attention brought by the first 4.....there is the subject of her 2 love affairs.....she spent a year believing that this irish fellow was as in love with her as she was with him,....but he married somebody else......and when she was finally asked to marry a friend of the family years later, she got cold feet and turned him down the day after the engagement party......it could have turned out differently, i suppose, but it didn't......