'A Little Chaos': A right-on woman landscaping Versailles

Actor Alan Rickman helms A Little Chaos, his second film as a director, with Kate Winslet as a royal landscaper helping to design the vast gardens of Versailles in the court of King Louis XIV (played by Rickman himself).

Winslet's powerhouse performances holds up A Little Chaos, a movie that cannot necessarily support her inherent force.

She plays Sabine de Barra, a fictional landscaper employed by André le Nôtre, mastermind behind Versailles' gardens. Matthias Schoenaerts, as le Nôtre, is getting mileage out of costume drama this summer: He also stars in the Thomas Hardy adaptation Far From the Madding Crowd.

De Barra's life is not the only fudged part of history. Schoenaerts is quite a bit studdlier than the real-life le Nôtre, who was pushing 70 when he started work on Versailles. He becomes immediately enchanted by de Barra, who eschews ideas of order in her work and whose troubled past puts the breaks on any intimacy between the two.

De Barra, who works on the Bosquet de la Salle du Bal in the film, fits squarely into that mold of historical ladies doing it for themselves. She's tough and anachronistic.

She finds a worthy foe in le Nôtre's wife (Helen McCrory), who is perfectly, scene-chewingly evil. Both McCrory and Stanley Tucci, who puts in a dandy performance as Louis' flamboyant brother, Philippe, try mightily to give the film a spark it can never quite run with. There's no reason, plotwise, for these two characters to be in the movie. Neither of them really has an arc, but at least they add a little color.

While McCrory's villain and Tucci's comic relief are A Little Chaos' only jolts, the best scene is a quiet one between Rickman and Winslet, with de Barra happening upon Louis as he mourns the death of his wife. It's a gorgeous scene, not just because of its lush garden setting, but because it's lovely to watch two adept actors who are masters at their craft.

Winslet has other powerful scenes, especially a visceral one near the end that dives into her harried history. It, however, is not enough to keep A Little Chaos in order.

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