The Queen of Versailles

Meet Jackie and David Siegel and their eight children; Jackie is a former beauty queen and David is the billionaire “Time-Share King” of the world, and they are building their dream home – the USA’s largest single domestic home - modelled on the Versailles palace in France. And then the economic crisis hits.

The Queen of Versailles is their story and how, in the face of the worst economic crisis in 100 years, Jackie, David, their children, maids, dogs, employees and business associates struggle to keep the time-share business afloat and finish their dream-home: Versailles, Florida. The Queen of Versailles is a deft and surprisingly subtle piece of filmmaking; Lauren Greenfield’s knowing camera not only interviews but captures private moments in the Siegels’ lives, and she constructs metaphors to create portraits of family, friends, colleagues, nannies and children as their rarefied world is turned upside down. The result is a hypnotic film of a family and the demise of the American Dream.