The Queen of Versailles (2012)
Average Rating: 8/10
Reviews Counted: 103
Fresh: 98 | Rotten: 5
The Queen of Versailles is a timely, engaging, and richly drawn portrait of the American Dream improbably composed of equal parts compassion and schadenfreude.
Average Rating: 8.3/10
Critic Reviews: 30
Fresh: 28 | Rotten: 2
The Queen of Versailles is a timely, engaging, and richly drawn portrait of the American Dream improbably composed of equal parts compassion and schadenfreude.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 13,196
My Rating
Movie Info
The Queen of Versailles is a character-driven documentary about a billionaire family and their financial challenges in the wake of the economic crisis. With epic proportions of Shakespearean tragedy, the film follows two unique characters, whose rags-to-riches success stories reveal the innate virtues and flaws of the American Dream. The film begins with the family triumphantly constructing the biggest house in America, a 90,000 sq. ft. palace. Over the next two years, their sprawling empire,
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Cast
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David Siegel
David Siegel -
Jackie Siegel
Jackie Siegel -
Virginia Nebel
Virginia Nebel
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All Critics (103) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (99) | Rotten (5) | DVD (1)
It's priceless.
Top CriticSeriously, if this was the American Dream, couldn't we have come up with something better?
This rags-to-riches-to-almost-rags-again queen has an endearing knack for looking on the bright side. You find yourself, by the end, wishing her well.
"The Queen of Versailles" is funny, sad, infuriating, instructive. It's the American Dream inflated to ridiculous extremes, until it bursts.
More than a social morality tale, this is a character study, with the title well chosen.
"The Queen of Versailles" ought to be required viewing for anyone who blames the rich for yanking the rug out from under America's economy.
Strangely entertaining and revealing documentary about a culture obsessed with money and people aspiring to a life they can't afford. Greed is good once again if you can borrow enough money to consume all you desire. Mind the debt gap.
...their plight plays like the financial crisis in miniature. Or perhaps it's in macro.
My problem with this riches to rags Americana story is that I felt no sympathy for the featured self-absorbed materialists.
If you've ever wondered how that one percent of the richest lives, this film will show you how one family lives (they are probably back in the 99 percent now), and it ain't pretty.
Both the quintessential documentary about the Great Recession, and quite possibly the most Schadenfreude-filled movie of all time.
A documentary about a rich couple riding the waves of wealth and greed and then plunging downwards.
A brilliant biopic which elicits an emotional response that's the epitome of schadenfreude!
A powerhouse documentary, the film shifts from simply being a fly-on-the-wall look at material decadence and moral decay into a study of a family trying to hold itself together during a trying period.
a repetitive exercise in schadenfreude, and the Siegels don't do much to alter that... The Queen of Versailles leaves viewers with one feeling about the Siegels: Let them eat stale cake.
Documentaries are rarely as hilarious as this one. Well, the first half of it at least
[E]nds up an ever less slightly ungenerous look at the .01 percent than it might have been... But this is still a brutal film from many angles.
One of the great unsayable truths about the American dream is that it is a bit of a Ponzi scheme ... our system admits a glimmer of hope that anyone, no matter how lowborn, can rise to the top.
Extremely funny and revealing ...
[Siegel] is now suing Greenfield for "misrepresentation". Well, I know whose side I'm on.
She epitomises a Western culture struggling to wean itself off debt.
Greenfield's film is bathed in Florida sunshine, adding to the sensation that we're watching Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with a Marxist punchline.
Never has grotesque wealth looked so unenviable, or its removal been so entertaining, as in this garishly watchable riches-to-rags documentary ...
[Siegel] ultimately emerges as someone who belongs more in The Little House on the Prairie: ever cheerful, and triumphantly unimpeachable.
The temptation to be moralistic must have been overpowering, yet Greenfield finally manages to summon sympathy for people who at first seem vain, selfish and greedy.
Prepare to be shocked, disgusted and compelled.
Audience Reviews for The Queen of Versailles
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Jackie Siegel: What's my driver's name?
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- David Siegel: Ah my step mother, the hostess with the two mostest.
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- David Siegel: If you loved me, why did you leave the lights on?
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