Super Frat

The Queen of Versailles is a documentary about a rich family that may or may not be losing their fabulous riches.  The documentary centers around the wife, Jackie, and her struggle with possibly returning to the middle class and with some parts of reality.

Married to time share mogul, David Segal, the couple has eight kids, 19 housekeepers and is building the largest home in the United States when the movie opens.  But then, the 2008 financial crash hits David’s business hard.  Without cheap loans to fuel his time share resorts, especially the new one he’s just built in Las Vegas, the business starts to unravel.  Without giving it all away, there’s an ironic moment when you realize that the banks foreclosing on one of Jackie’s friends back home are basically doing the same thing to David’s $600 million monstrosity.

It’s hard to feel empathy for people who need to build a new house mostly because their old house was too full of stuff, but the filmmakers try their best.  Jackie’s charity work and trying to help her friend are in contrast to her mega shopping sprees and cosmetic procedures.

The Queen of Versailles is basically a two-hour reality show.  And while there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in watching a filthy rich person’s wealth disappear, it’s ultimately kind of sad.  It’s hard to muster up sympathy for a person, even a nice person, who is losing their home when they probably have enough money tied up just in shoes to buy another.  It’s not a bad documentary and there are enough ironic moments to justify its success at Sundance.  For me, this is more of a rental.  Okay, but not great.

I give the Queen of Versailles 4.5 keggers out of 10.