93% The Queen of Versailles

All Critics (55) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (51) | Rotten (4)

What I left with was not hatred. I disapprove of the values they represent, but I also find them fascinating and just slightly lovable.

"The Queen of Versailles" turns out to be a portrait -- appalling, absorbing and improbably affecting -- of how, even within a system seemingly designed to ensure that the rich get richer, sometimes the rich get poorer.

Through a clear lens unclouded by politics or blame, it offers insight into the hazardous American practice of living beyond our means.

There's more going on here than classist derision, and the filmmaker uses her footage to try to sort out her feelings.

The Queen of Versailles combines the voyeuristic thrills of reality TV with the soul-revealing artistry of great portraiture and the head-shaking revelations of solid investigative reporting.

The paradox of wealth without refinement remains unexamined but emerges as a metaphor for the American Dream itself.

By the end, the movie has pulled off a small miracle: You become absorbed in the lives of these people for who they are and not what they own.

In director Lauren Greenfield's tremendous documentary packed with terrific details, greed is not good. It is a slow, self-inflicted wound whose pain hits hard and fast.

A well-told tale about having to atone for sins of the sub-prime era.

A tragicomic indulgence of schadenfreude with the sophistication of a Kardashian reality show.

The result is a rich portrait.

A dysfunctional family documentary which invites the audience to take pleasure in the misfortunes of some decidedly-decadent 1%ers.

There are improbably involving human stories here.

It transforms from a mocking portrait of exorbitance into a sympathetic depiction of a family struggling with their own version of what most of us have gone through.

Extravagant yet surprisingly compassionate, it's a unique chronicle of the collapse of the real estate market.

Compulsively watchable from start to finish, The Queen of Versailles chips away at the aspirational fantasy that drives those Bravo shows, slowly, steadily allowing reality to slip through the cracks.

Ultra-rich face financial crisis in teen-friendly docu.

A rise-and-fall story that will have you laughing and shaking your head - in pity, disgust and, occasionally, outrage - at the very same time.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_queen_of_versailles/

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