Parents' Guide to The Rose of Versailles

As a remake of the original 1979–80 TV series, this film adaptation fails to say much. Also based on the original manga from 1972–73, The Rose of Versailles chooses to focus on the opulence and beauty of the French aristocracy's extravagance. This, of course, is a tad hypocritical, given that Marie Antoinette and the French royalty were blamed for the same focus. In other words, this film has no comment on wealth disparity, political corruption, or changing attitudes around gender. Instead, the focus is on the beauty of the environments, the set and costume design, and romance itself, as there seems to be nothing more important than the beauty of a true love. The problem is that there isn't any character development, so each romance seems entirely based on whether or not the two people involved find each other physically beautiful.

Incredibly, the film also has nothing to say about Oscar, the main character who "was raised as a boy," often passes as a man, and dresses almost entirely in military regalia. From this character description, one might anticipate positive queer and/or gender fluid representation or queer-coded characters, but queerness doesn't seem to exist in this world. Early on, when Marie jokes with Oscar, "If you were a man, I'd fall in love right away," it feels like the film might be beginning to say something interesting about Oscar or about queer love or about Marie Antoinette herself, even if she is a historical figure. This hope, however, is quickly dashed, as it quickly becomes clear that this is a straightforward (pun intended) and shallow teen drama with nothing interesting to say, except it does boast over a dozen musical interludes and montages (they're really a series of music videos) that help extend its run time to almost two hours.