Vatel

This sumptuously-mounted costume drama (receiving an Oscar nom for art direction) is an overstuffed trifle starring Gerard Depardieu in his best role in years as Vatel, master steward to the bankrupt Prince de Conde, who is out of favor with King Louis XIV. To reverse his fortunes, he charges Vatel to mount a three-day bacchanal for the king at his country estate. Taking the king's scheming confidant (Tim Roth reveling in his bad self) at his word, Vatel sets "no limit to the extravagance and ingenuity of the festivities." Martha Stewart has nothing on Vatel. When not creating astonishing dishes and staging spectacular theatrical tableaux, he finds the time to bed the courtesan desired by the king (a woefully miscast Uma Thurman) and save a scullery boy from the king's pedophile brother. Director Roland Joffe's (whose The Scarlet Letter remains something of a literary low-water mark) latest is a feast for the eyes, but dramatically unfulfilling, with Tom Stoppard's (the Oscar-winning co-screenwriter of Shakespeare in Love) adaptation of the original French screenplay by Jeanne Labrune leading us to suspect that the wit must have gotten lost in the translation. Not a necessary purchase. (K. Lee Benson)