THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES: the American Dream from riches to fancy rags

There's a wonderful moment midway through THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES which sums up exactly what this 2012 documentary is all about.

Having been forced to downsize by business reverses following the 2008 Stock Market crash, the wife of the man building the biggest single-family private home in America, has been forced to abandon the corporate jet and fly commercial to a family reunion. Arriving at a small regional airport in upstate New York she proceeds to the Hertz counter to pick up her rental car.
"And what is the name of my driver?" she asks the clerk behind the desk.
The look on his face of disbelief and incomprehension says it all.
Rich people just don't get it. Even when they're trying ever so hard to show us how normal they are. Even when they came from an ordinary background and marry into obscene wealth.
And the Siegels are obscenely wealthy. Or, at least, they were when director Lauren Greenfield started her film project.
Back before the 08 crash 74 year old David Siegel was the king of the timeshares, owner of the biggest private timeshare company in the world and possessor of so much money that he decides to build an enormous mansion modeled on Versailles just outside Orlando in Florida.
Why?
"Because I can."
With 7 children, 19 staff, numerous dogs, snakes, mice, fish and lizards, and enough possessions to fill several lifetimes, the Siegels have outgrown their current home, a decent but sub-palatial sized mansion on an island near Orlando. It's easy to blame David's 40 year old trophy wife, former model Jackie, for the conspicuous consumption. After all, she's the one doing the bulk of the spending, but that's only because he lets her. Shopping keeps her out of his thinning hair while he attends to his first love - business - but also ensures she has the clothes, the make-up and the hairstyles to look glamorous enough to show off to his famous and powerful friends, like Governor Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush (early on in the film Siegel boasts that he singlehandedly won Bush the Presidency by swinging Florida to him in 2000).
The Siegels fall from grace after September 08 when the banks demanded back the vast sums of money they'd lent his business is spectacular, and also changes entirely the focus of the film. Greenfield started out planning to chronicle the construction of the Siegels new palace but after financial problems halt work she focuses instead on their response to their newly reduced circumstances.

David becomes consumed by his efforts to save his company, leaving him little time for his family beyond barking at them for leaving all the lights on in the house, and it's left to Jackie to try and reduce the family's grotesque monthly expenditures, something she's ill-equipped to do despite her modest upbringing.
At times it's difficult to decide whether to laugh or cry at her alternately well-intentioned and clueless attempts. She veers from sincere to pointless token gestures in an instant and never really demonstrates a genuine grasp of what it means to cut back on unnecessary spending. Sure she buys the kids Christmas presents at Walmart but she purchases 6 or 8 shopping carts-worth before checking in at the clinic for her latest chemical skin peel and Botox injections.
THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES is a salutary lesson for anyone who still believes in the American dream, and that hard work leads to wealth and happiness. Everything David Siegel has worked for turns to crap during the course of the film, and while they're nowhere near penniless by the end one senses their near future looking less than bright. David's likely to spend his remaining years trying to dig himself out of the deep hole he's put himself into, while Jackie has to decide how long she can continue being understanding about his stress induced bad temper and intolerance of his family.
I'd love to revisit them a couple of years from now to discover what happened next.
Funny, infuriating, disturbing, and surprisingly human, THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES will not only make you feel better about not being obscenely rich, it'll also - despite everything - make you feel just a small amount of sympathy for those that are.