It’s been a long time since I’ve been both disgusted and enthralled by a movie, maybe not since I watched the cult-classic, and probably the first ever gross-out film, Pink Flamingoes freshmen year. Thankfully, The Queen of Versailles is disgusting in a totally different way. The documentary chronicles the financial rise and fall of David Siegel, a timeshare mogul who lives an opulent life in Florida.
The real stand out of the film is his much younger wife Jacqueline, an ex-model and computer engineer so jaded by her surroundings and in such deep denial that financial ruin doesn’t stop her from dropping $2,000 on caviar. She runs around the house in tacky short shorts, occasionally stopping to pet a dog or scold one of her eight children.
The title comes from the grand home the Siegel’s are building. It’s 90,000 sq. feet and modeled off Versailles, yes, that Versailles. Not even halfway through the construction, the home has to go on the market because of the sudden economic downturn.
It’s fascinating to watch David’s bullheadedness as he sacrifices more and more, including his children’s private education, to be able to keep the McMonster. Jacqueline flits around acting like nothing’s wrong and completely unaware of the depth of the hole her family has found themselves in.
The editing is tight and quick, not afraid to juxtapose a crying maid who hasn’t seen her family in years with a scene of Jacqueline surrounded by her coterie of kids in their personal gym.
In an age when schadenfreude is running more rampant than ever, Queen of Versailles satisfies a voyeur’s most basic needs by being shocking, hilarious and occasionally depressing. Keep those voluptuous, baby-voiced Kardashians. I want to see more of the Siegels.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Ohio U chapter.