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hyped garbage

Admirable film.

A different way of telling a story

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Money over everything… at least that's what the Siegel family believes. In "The queen of Versailles", a witty and fun documentary about the Siegel family, David Siegel - a 78 year old and multi millionaire , is the whole reason any of this is happening. The family decide that they want to build a mansion that resembles Versailles. The mansion would've been 90,000 square feet complete with an ice skating rink and a health spa. The story then moves over to David's life and it tells us about how he decided on his timeshare idea and his newfound wealth. Moreover, we learn about the Siegel kids. They talk about how they are so excited to move into the new house because the one they are living in is too small even though it has 10 bathrooms. We then take a closer look at the timeshare company. There are 23 buildings in 11 states. In the climax of the documentary and a horrible turn of events, the Siegels' life has come to a startling holt as the stock market has crashed. Almost all of the Siegels belongings have either been auctioned or sold. Any planes ,resorts ,and even their mansion which was 50% finished. Everything was sold at half price. Even the mansion was going to be sold at only 75 milllion. The family struggles with avoiding to compulsive shop and get used to the "normal" life. David tries to convince himself that material things don't completely matter to him. Yet he has a problem with wanting to see his timeshare company. Which I could understand because that is something that is really personal to him. The documentary is an eye opener. Money comes and goes but family is always there. The documentary does not finish with a happy ending due to the fact that the problems weren't resolved but the family continues to work hard at doing better with their spending habits. It is however, pretty funny to watch a rich family go through everyday struggles.

David Siegel was a wealthy Florida developer of time share properties. He was so successful, that he influenced politics and expanded into Las Vegas. The Siegel was at the top of the world. His wife is Jaqueline Siegel. Together they have seven kids. They started to build a massive home in Orlando based on the French Palace of Versailles. And then the financial boom turned into bust.It would be easy to do a superficial ridicule of their family. He's a money grubbing Republican. She's a former pageant queen trophy wife. But they are more than 2-dimensional characters. Sure she could be a compulsive buyer. She could say dumb things, but she's not a simpleton. She started as a computer engineer, but had a troubled first marriage. And for him, there is something more than money in the Las Vegas property. Could it be pride and redemption?Of course, there is luck of the draw. I'm sure that the documentarians didn't foresee the financial meltdown. After the meltdown, the financial stress truly test the family relationship. How could anybody script Jaqueline asking the Hertz rental guy where the chauffeur was? But sometimes reality beats any script that the best writer can come up with.

The most amazing thing about this documentary is that the principals, David and Jaqueline Siegel, allowed so much access into their homes and unraveling lives. When the film begins, the May-December pair is sitting on top of the world -- she quite beautiful and happily managing a brood of eight children, he building a palace with a view of Disney World's fireworks that would be the biggest house in the world. He still seems to appreciate his hyper-sexy wife, who boasts obvious breast implants that she displays in clingy, low-cut dresses.By the end of the film, David Siegel is looking much worse for the wear. He sits alone in a disheveled home office, eating dinner from a tray, griping about petty wastes of money, such as when a family member leaves a door ajar. Due to crises in the economy, he has lost a lot of his fortune and is working to stave off bank creditors and foreclosure. This saturnine figure who freely admits he cannot separate business from family won't even give his wife a kiss.The film paints a highly poignant portrait of Jackie, who says she married a man 30 years her senior strictly for love. Apparently suffering from a need to shop compulsively, despite her family's financial woes, she is often shown gamely approaching her husband and trying to humor him or make a vain stab at chat.A great sense of sadness seems to pervade this clan, whose children nevertheless appear to have come through it all pretty well. One feels for the tunnel-visioned David and hopes that Jackie will somehow find some peace.

"The Queen of Versailles" is an extremely unusual documentary, and I can only assume the histrionic nature of the Siegel family is why the film was ever made. It consists of a camera crew following this family (and in particular Jackie and her husband David) during a period which appears to be about two years to three. I honestly cannot expect most families being willing to have their lives chronicled and disrupted like this--particularly because the second half of the film shows the family at their worst. Odd, that's for sure.When the film begins, David Siegel is an incredibly wealthy man. He's made his fortune with his vast empire of time share properties and because he is so wealthy, he and his wife are in the process of building a new home they nickname 'Versailles'. It is projected to be the largest single family home in America! During most of this period of the film the camera follows Jackie--a woman who seems to love the attention and who lives a charmed life of luxury.Part-way through the film, however, comes the market and housing crash of 2008. And with it, disposable incomes have diminished--making selling of time shares almost impossible. Additionally, bank financing, which had previously been easy to obtain by David, suddenly evaporated--leaving his heavily leveraged empire on the brink of collapse. During this period of the film, Jackie has come to accept that she WON'T be moving into the new palace--and they might lose their current home as well. She handles this by shopping.It's rather hard to adequately rate this film. On one hand, the filmmakers have provided a wholly unique film showing these folks--warts and all. And, it is well constructed and compelling. But on the other hand, there really is nothing to like or admire about these folks. Despite their wealth, they seem spiritually impoverished, self-centered and sad...profoundly sad. In fact, after seeing the film, my entire family felt depressed and insisted we watch something uplifting or fun. Seeing this film is anything but fun and it's not even good for someone wanting to laugh at the Siegels. They aren't funny....just profoundly sad. A very sad marriage, spoiled kids, a love of money, looks and possessions...all quite depressing to witness.