It’s difficult to dislike Professor Snape’s…oops I mean Alan Rickman’s second movie as a director. With a solid cast engaged in an intriguing love story, beautiful 17th century clothes, and the Palace of Versailles as a breathtaking backdrop, “A Little Chaos” has an abundance of eye candy and charm. It isn’t a great movie (far from it), and some people might find it a bit “slow”, but it’s a refreshing change from most of the Hollywood junk playing right now. Winslet is in fine form playing Sabine De Barra, a widowed landscape gardener in 1682 Paris, who’s hired to work on the gardens of Versailles by chief landscape architect André Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts). In doing so, Rickman has painted an elegant picture that doesn’t pretend to be anything else. There’s a romance involved, as you would expect from a movie featuring Kate Winslet, and plenty of amusing supporting characters, including Rickman himself as Louis XIV. If the early part of the story is more compelling than its final act, it’s a minor criticism for an overall enjoyable piece of entertainment.

Rating: 2.5/4