To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote in The Great Gatsby, "The rich are different from you and me." One would suppose that to be the case at the outset of Lauren Greenfield's entertaining and strangely compelling documentary The Queen of Versailles. A profile of self-proclaimed timeshare king David Siegel and his Barbie-doll third wife, Jackie, as they construct what they tout as the largest home in the United States, the film opens with footage of the Siegels and their brood (they have eight children) living large and bragging about the power their wealth has brought them.
However, the tight-jawed, old money snobs with their rigid WASP lifestyles that Fitzgerald wrote about in Gatsby have nothing to do with the Siegels, whose lack of pretension and zest for stuff (and more stuff) are nothing if not the American dream writ large. These are not people who worry about dinner seating charts or fussing about good penmanship on handwritten thank-you notes. Jackie—a 46-year-old former Mrs. Florida America with breast implants, blonde highlights and other obvious cosmetic enhancements—is a woman who has her chauffeur go through the McDonald's drive-up, who wears a fur coat around the house and who brags about her $17,000 designer boots. David, 31 years her senior, crows early on in the movie that he was responsible for securing Bush's place in the White House and that the real reason for building the 90,000-square-foot home in Orlando is "Because I can."
Nothing about the Siegels and their rags-to-riches story seems atypical (with the exception, perhaps, of David's billion-dollar success) and these modern-day Clampetts—with their lack of taste and avid desire for more, more, more—are as familiar as all those instant lottery millionaires seemingly profiled on the news every other day. Nor is the Taj Mahal-sized "house" they are building out of line for consumers on this scale. The "need" for all that closet space, a separate wing for the children and the nannies, the ice-skating rink and endless bathrooms—these are familiar McMansion talismans.
What sets this look at the nouveau super-riche and the film apart is that the Siegels let Greenfield and her crew continue filming when the dream began to collapse. This was after the disastrous mortgage crisis in 2008 that struck at the heart of Westgate Resorts, David Siegel's timeshare business. Relying on selling timeshares on margin to risky buyers—not unlike the junk mortgages favored by the housing market—the company's inability to get cash to cover the defaults put the Siegels in financial hot water. Within months of the financial meltdown the unfinished dream palace (which we never see being worked on), inspired by a trip to the real Versailles, was on the market for $100 million ($75 million unfinished), along with just about every other Siegel asset.
Forced to financially "conserve," the shopping-mad Jackie makes do with buying Christmas presents at Wal-Mart and letting most of the staff go. David, sullen and depressed, withdraws to his man cave, snarling or indifferent each time Jackie attempts to pull him out of his funk. No doubt Greenfield knew she had hit pay dirt with scenes like the one in which Jackie is forced to fly commercial air and asks the car rental agent (in all seriousness) the name of her driver.
There is also the scene in which David's highly touted company office tower in Las Vegas, newly opened, sits eerily empty only months later. But Greenfield also captures moments that aren't so easily predictable—like the one in which a neglected pet lizard is found dead and is quickly forgotten within the cluttered and filthy McMansion, or the scene in which Jackie decides to "help out" with the cooking for David's birthday dinner. Jackie seems unflappable, a cheerful but benign narcissist who never really seems to connect with her husband, kids or what remains of her staff while David stubbornly rejects any culpability over his actions (he constantly blames "the banks" for his changing fortune) and seems to only come alive when involved in a business transaction.
It's easy to tag The Queen of Versailles as nothing more than a portrait of wretched excess, and the kitsch factor is admittedly high. But there's something also subtly but powerfully disturbing going on underneath that has more, I think, to do with the strange combination of soullessness, anxiety and a sense of some profound intangible irretrievably lost that stays with you long after the movie is over.
DVD notes:
Here's a laundry list of recent DVD/Blu-ray releases of interest:
—Bravo network staple, recent Emmy nominee (once again) and the gay community's BFF Kathy Griffin is showcased in Pants Off/Tired Hooker, two of her most recent, patented dirty, gossipy stand up concert specials.
—The odd crime-noir thriller Bound from 1996 is equally notable for its red hot love scenes between Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon. The movie is now out on Blu-ray.
—Both classic and camp cinema fans will rejoice with the news that Nicholas Ray's 1954 western Johnny Guitar has finally been released on DVD and Blu-ray. The movie stars Joan Crawford—at her butchest—going head to head with tough-as-nails, crazy conservative zealot Mercedes McCambridge while a host of male sycophants stand around watching the two go at it. Big fun.
—Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino enliven the underrated but very funny 1997 Romy & Michele's High School Reunion (out in a 15th-anniversary Blu-ray edition) which also features gay star Alan Cumming in one of his first film roles and a hilarious supporting turn by Janeane Garafalo.
—Mary Marie is a new lesbian romantic drama in which an intense long-term friendship between two women blossoms into the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
—Sebastiane, the 1976 first feature from late queer auteur Derek Jarman, is coming to Blu-ray in a remastered edition. The film, which details the life of the Roman soldier who eventually became Saint Sebastian, is awash in male sensuality and is gorgeously photographed. This is an instant queer classic that, given its release date, was unsurprisingly the subject of plenty of controversy in its day. Jarman's debut announced the arrival of a major talent.
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