Great, great, great documentary. Funny in all the wrong places. I can’t pronounce it, and I can’t use it in a sentence, but the word “schadenfreude” comes to mind, which is to say that watching these obnoxiously dumb and outrageously wealthy people go from being billionaires to millionaires is both hilarious and painful. The trophy wife at the center of the story is Jackie Siegel, a beauty queen who married a sleazy time-share billionaire thirty years her senior. When she gives a tour of the 90,000 square foot house she’s building, talking about the ice rink and the bowling alley, you want to strangle her. Watching the money disappear, watching them layoff the servants, and watching Jackie try and keep her family together is hilarious and poignant. As I was watching, I could almost FEEL my worldview changing. I thought about how out-of-touch these people were. About ugly and nasty extreme wealth could be. I thought about poor people. And I thought about myself, and areas in my life where I waste money. In the end, Jackie Siegel comes off as a pretty decent person who really just wants a nice life for her family. She likes the bubble that she’s in -- she more or less admits that. But when she buys her son a bike, and the film cuts to a garage full of at least a dozen bikes, you can’t help but wanting to grab a sign and head on down to the nearest occupy Wall Street protest. A must see movie.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
The Queen of Versailles
Great, great, great documentary. Funny in all the wrong places. I can’t pronounce it, and I can’t use it in a sentence, but the word “schadenfreude” comes to mind, which is to say that watching these obnoxiously dumb and outrageously wealthy people go from being billionaires to millionaires is both hilarious and painful. The trophy wife at the center of the story is Jackie Siegel, a beauty queen who married a sleazy time-share billionaire thirty years her senior. When she gives a tour of the 90,000 square foot house she’s building, talking about the ice rink and the bowling alley, you want to strangle her. Watching the money disappear, watching them layoff the servants, and watching Jackie try and keep her family together is hilarious and poignant. As I was watching, I could almost FEEL my worldview changing. I thought about how out-of-touch these people were. About ugly and nasty extreme wealth could be. I thought about poor people. And I thought about myself, and areas in my life where I waste money. In the end, Jackie Siegel comes off as a pretty decent person who really just wants a nice life for her family. She likes the bubble that she’s in -- she more or less admits that. But when she buys her son a bike, and the film cuts to a garage full of at least a dozen bikes, you can’t help but wanting to grab a sign and head on down to the nearest occupy Wall Street protest. A must see movie.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment