![]() Jonathan Pryce makes the cardinal into a venal and greedy schemer, and Christopher Walken, as always, inspires hope when he walks into a scheme. Joely Richardson is an imperious, silly Marie Antoinette, able to deceive herself but not often deceived by anyone else. The supporting cast offers incidental pleasures. "The Affair of the Necklace" only works if it understands Jeanne is one villain among many, not a misguided heroine. So does Charles Shyer, who directed this movie and sends Swank on the wrong assignment. Hilary Swank, I fear, believes we should feel sorry for Jeanne. Above all, she needs a kind of Bette Davis imperiousness. She also embodies a certain plucky vulnerability, when what is wanted for Jeanne Valois is the Monica Lewinsky gene, the ability to imagine herself in the embrace of the great. Hilary Swank, who was so wonderful in her Oscar-winning work in " Boys Don't Cry" (1999), exudes truthworthiness, which is the wrong quality for this assignment. What was she thinking? That the queen had so many necklaces she would never be able to account for one more or less? And that the cardinal would never dare refer directly to the transaction? This kind of skullduggery (a word actually used in the film) would be more appropriate in the hands of an actress who includes devious scheming among her specialties-a Helena Bonham Carter, say, or Catherine Zeta-Jones. She gets the money from the cardinal, obtains the necklace from the royal jeweler, keeps it for herself, uses it to repurchase her family home and forges letters from the queen to the cardinal to cover the deception. She convinces him that Marie Antoinette will be more favorably disposed toward his cause if he presents the queen with a fabulous necklace containing 647 diamonds. She knows that Cardinal Louis de Rohan (played by Jonathan Pryce in a congenial state of sin) wishes to be prime minister. She dreams of restoring the glory of her family name and returning to the family house where she spent her childhood, and to do this, she unfolds a scheme of audacious daring. The operative name is "Valois." It is her family name, and she was orphaned as a child after her parents were involved in schemes against the crown. Remy de Valois, who, after her marriage of convenience, becomes Jeanne de la Motte-Valois. The movie stars Hilary Swank as Jeanne St.
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