Search - Palais Royal! on DVD

NO English subtitles for a Region 1 DVD!?!

Shelley E. Scruggs | Cambridge, MA USA | 03/12/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I was excited to find this DVD finally offered by one of Amazon's affiliated vendors for the Region 1 DVD crowd (US & Canada). However, I was very troubled to find that the DVD contained NO English subtitles or subtitles of any language! This I simply do not understand. My French is limited to a few years in high school and college, so my understanding of what the characters were saying was very limited. However, I was able to find "SRT" files on the web which contained the English translations, and proceeded to watch the movie by "reading along".



Princess Armelle (Valerie Lemercier, also the director) is married to the good-for-nothing, polo-playing, pot-smoking second son of an imaginary royal family. When the King/father dies unexpectedly her husband becomes the heir apparent, passing over his feckless older brother who has an "private" anomaly (three testicles) that has turned off any potential wives-to-be. Armelle, who holds a respectable job as a speech therapist, is suddenly forced to give up her profession to become a Princess Diana like figure in the country. A good portion of the humor is physical with Armelle going around to county festivals, eating all sorts of strange foods, and talking to all manner of "down-and-out" citizens. Slowly she becomes more confident in her public persona, but she also discovers that her husband has a little something going on on the side.



Catherine Deneuve is wonderful as her mother-in-law the Queen, and is always a joy to watch in a comedic role.



Now if she (and the movie) were only subtitled! 3 stars out of 5."