Star Rating:

A Little Chaos

Director: Alan Rickman

Actors: Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman

Release Date: Friday 17th April 2015

Genre(s): Factual

Running time: 116 minutes

In the second of two actor-turned-director outings this month, Alan Rickman follows Russell Crowe’s safety-first lead with The Water Diviner, delivering little of the disorder promised in the title. But this 17th century period drama is pretty to look at and boasts solid performances.

Sabine De Barra (Winslet) is a talented landscape designer whose penchant for the disarray in her plans catches the eye of André Le Notre (Schoenaerts), the king’s landscape artiste. He’s under pressure to satisfy the king’s (Rickman) demands for ‘perfection’ but takes a chance on the uncultured woman and employs her to help design the new gardens at Versailles. De Barra goes about navigating the androcentric world and, despite having no time for court protocol, wins over the notoriously fickle court and Le Notre’s heart…

Rickman’s first time behind the camera since 1997’s The Winter Guest, A Little Chaos flatters to deceive. The performances do a job, with a solid Winslet and a towering Schoenaerts doing what they can to generate some heat. Rickman’s king is fun, as is Stanley Tucci’s campy bisexual. And there’s a wonderful moment where outsider Winslet and a group of royal ladies bond over the children they have lost to accident or illness, and how they’re expected to smile and get on with things.

But is unsure what it wants to say. Guilt, grief, trust, true love, the strength of ambition, the need to break from convention all play a part but nothing is given enough time to explore properly. Backstories are indulged but have little impact on the main thrust of the story, which is Winslet defying the odds by pulling the garden together in time. These titbits should be there to embellish character but they distract. Winslet guards an unshakable culpability involving the death of her child, while Schoenaerts is revealed to be a kept man by a mean-spirited and promiscuous but jealous Madame (Helen McCrory). Rickman’s king is also hurting, having not recovered from the death of his wife.

These dalliances will please Rickman fans as they’re just sequences with Rickman being Rickman, but they’re interruptions. By the time Rickman stands smiling in the finished garden with dancers prancing about him, one is left wondering what the hell is going on, and whose story this was all along.

It lacks focus and pacing but the seductive visuals and the strong performances will take one through the more messy areas.