An average movie

Hilary Swank has one of the most peculiar careers in Hollywood. Indeed, she is one of the very few thespians who managed to win 2 Academy awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role but also she has one of the even fewer who managed to have a 100% win percentage which means that she won every time she was nominated. Alright, but what about the rest of her career? That’s the whole point, the other movies she made aside from the impressive ‘Boys don’t cry’ and ‘Million Dollar Baby’ where actually rather underwhelming and this movie was a fine example. Indeed, it was the 2nd movie she made after ‘Boys don’t cry’ and even though she should be praised for trying something really different, the end-result was not really impressive. The main issue, in my opinion, is that the makers tried to convince us that this whole (allegedly true) story was paramount in the beginning of the French revolution but I wasn’t really convinced. Basically, it wasn’t really spellbinding but it doesn’t mean that it was really a bad movie. Indeed, the costumes and sets looked gorgeous and you have to give Hilary Swank some credit for going from the gritty contemporary realism of ‘Boys don’t cry’ to a lavish historical costume drama. To conclude, even though it was rather underwhelming, I still think it remains somehow a decent period piece and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10