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Bookmark this pageVatel (2000)
Director: Roland Joffé
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Despite a sturdy, occasionally subtle performance from Depardieu, cast (predictably) as the life-loving master of entertainments, burdened by his debt-ridden aristo employer (Glover) with the responsibility of providing food, music, theatre, etc, for the visiting Louis XIV (Sands), this tepid costumer is as much a hollow, purposelessly extravagant spectacle as the court shenanigans it depicts. The plot, such as it is, centres on the triangular romantic/sexual intrigues between principled lady-in-waiting Thurman, salt-of-the-earth Depardieu, and the king's malicious righthand wig Roth. For a movie about food, sensuality and passion, it's strikingly undernourished.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Roland Joffé
Producer: Alain Goldman, Roland Joffé
Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Julian Glover, Timothy Spall, Julian Sands, Richard Griffiths, Murray Lachlan Young, Hywel Bennett, Arielle Dombasle full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 117 mins
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