The Queen Of Versailles

A riches-to-(designer) rags story, Lauren Greenfield’s documentary is a timely meditation on consumerism run amok.
Showing how the recession affected American time share developer David Siegel, the film begins in 2007. With eight children, a shopaholic beauty-pageant wife and a net worth of $1.8 billion burning a hole in his pocket, Siegel decided to build a $100 million mansion twice the size of the White House. His reason was simple: “Because I can.”
Just one year on, Siegel’s business has taken a huge hit, and his affectionately-named ‘Versailles’ palace is incomplete. As he attempts to keep both himself and his business from going bankrupt, his wife Jackie struggles to adjust to their more frugal lifestyle (sob) and her increasing responsibilities at home. As staff are laid off, family pets die because no-one feeds them, dog excrement covers the floor because no-one cleans it, and chauffeur-loving Jackie bemuses car rental employees by asking “What’s my driver’s name?”
Not that The Queen Of Versailles is cruel to its subjects. Though Jackie’s ditziness, skimpy wardrobe and infuriatingly outrageous spending (not to mention her architecturally structured breasts) and Siegel’s morally questionable business could be easy targets, Greenfield shows a warmth and affection for the couple. Jackie proves to be big-hearted and self-deprecating, while Siegel is disarmingly honest, stating that some “extra-legal” funding on his part helped win George Bush the American Presidency.
From humble beginnings, the couple’s love of excess and ostentation seems to spring not from arrogance or entitlement, but from the naïve desire to prove that they’ve “made it.”
As their relationship grows increasingly strained due to the stress of their (well, his) finances, the documentary proves a sad, funny, compassionate and thought-provoking cautionary tale. And all the while, Versailles remains empty and unfinished; a mausoleum for the Siegels’ American dream.