Coppola Film Booed

To go to France with a Hollywood movie about one of the key periods in its revolutionary history was always going to be a gamble. And with so many American accents some Gallic booing was perhaps inevitable. Sofia Coppola's $40m (£22m) portrait of Marie Antoinette was premiered in Cannes yesterday, and while some in the audience of critics and film writers clearly enjoyed it, many did not.

Coppola said she was disappointed by the booing, but added: "I think it's better to get a reaction ... than a mediocre response."

Steve Coogan, who plays the Austrian ambassador to the French court, said people who loved Coppola's previous films would love Marie Antoinette. "When you make something that is personal and specific it is inevitable that there will be some naysayers."

Marie Antoinette is Coppola's third film after Virgin Suicides and the Oscar-winning Lost in Translation and is by far her biggest in terms of money and cast. The period drama with its stunning costumes covers Marie Antoinette's life after her marriage to the future King Louis XVI, but ends before her beheading.

Coppola let her actors to speak in their own accents, including Kirsten Dunst who plays the French queen. To be booed in Cannes is not unusual and the film's stars yesterday paid tribute to Coppola. Dunst said Coppola's films were an antidote to Hollywood: "She speaks greatly to women my age. She's the only one making movies about women in this way."