A Little Chaos

Alan Rickman directs and features in this engaging story as French King Louis XIV who desires a new and innovative garden for his palace at Versailles. He turns to his trusted planner André Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) who is a bit bereft of ideas, so he seeks an assistant. All of the horticultural great and the good apply with their perfectly symmetrical designs - but they don't float his boat. Then the widowed "Mme. De Barra" (Kate Winslet) shows up with her own ideas for a waterfall style feature that is radically different - and will require quite a bit of engineering too. Surprisingly, she gets the job and what now ensues sees her develop a relationship with her boss - much to the irritation of his own cheating wife (Helen McCrory), and with the flamboyant Duc d'Orléans (Stanley Tucci) and then his brother the King. It's the death of Queen Maria Theresa that really allows "De Barra" to convince the King to indulge her dream - but with the weather, the costs, time and envy conspiring against her, can she deliver? This is a good looking film with a considered and amiable effort from both Winslet and Schoenaerts well complemented by a little of the science (and botany) required to make something that will break the mould and by a score from Peter Gregson that complements well the grandeur and pomp of the court contrasted with the mud, the endless, mud. It does take a while to get going, but when it does it shows us a little of a woman in a man's world and of a King who didn't always want to be in his.