Short Takes: “The Queen of Versailles”

Membership Ticker

Do you give a damn about the future of this country?

You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t. It’s never been more obvious that American democracy is fragile. And while the corporate media goes all in on horse-race journalism, we're digging for what matters: the ties between right-wing extremism and the GOP, dirty deeds done by billionaire-funded super-PACs, the how-this-affects-you implications of the candidates’ positions. One thing that can reliably stop liars, grifters, and extremists? Truth-telling independent media. And right now, we need your support.

We know you give a damn about this country’s future. So while the corporate media goes all in on horse-race journalism, we've spent this election season digging for the stories that matter. One thing that can reliably stop liars, grifters, and extremists is truth-telling independent media. And right now, we need your support.

Courtesy of Evergreen Pictures

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The Queen of Versailles

MAGNOLIA PICTURES

101 minutes

The queen is Jacqueline Siegel, an IBM engineer cum Mrs. Florida. Her decades-older husband is America’s “timeshare king.” Together they’re building a 90,000-square-foot mansion dubbed Versailles. The film starts out as a better-than-fiction peek at the foibles of the 0.01 percent, but as the subprime crisis hits, it becomes a meditation on the collapse of a lifestyle built on debt. The Siegels struggle to save their kingdom, but just when you start feeling for them, Jackie opens another tin of caviar, and the title becomes all too apt.

This review originally appeared in our July/August issue of Mother Jones.