Review: Little worth and no chemistry in 'A Little Chaos'

• Critic%27s review%3A 2.5 stars %28out of 5%29

Richly talented actor Alan Rickman, who hasn't directed a movie since 1997's "The Winter Guest," returns with "A Little Chaos," a fictional period drama about love blossoming between two landscape gardeners working for King Louis XIV.

The big mystery: Something about this slight, underfed tale made Rickman think, "Landscape architects: That speaks to me!" Maybe it's that he was able to work on the script (he's one of three writers credited). Perhaps it's the fact that he gets to play Louis (who assumed the French throne in 1643), offering the kind of dry and droll performance he can deliver in his sleep.

There's a lot of that kind of deja vu to be found here. This is a movie in which everything feels vaguely familiar. Stanley Tucci wanders through as Philippe, the king's grand, foppish brother. You can imagine how Tucci will deliver the lines — think a cross between his work in "Jack the Giant Slayer" and "The Hunger Games" films — and that's exactly how he says them.

The bulk of the movie focuses on Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet), a widowed landscape gardener who works under Andre le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) to create an outdoor venue for the king in Versailles. He's orderly in his designs while she has a thing for chaos; hence the title and the supposed tension in the story.

Visually, the film is sumptuous and the costumes are suitably wow-inspiring, but the humans are a blah bunch. Sabine hides a tragic secret — we discover it through dreary flashback, of course — and Andre has an open marriage, but these are mere speed bumps in the relationship.

The movie is severely hampered by a noticeable lack of chemistry between the two stars. They look right together, with Winslet in a corset and Schoenaerts sporting long hair and designer stubble, like he stopped by after modeling for the cover of a Harlequin novel. But there's never any heat — or chaos — between the two. Pity.

Reach the reporter at randy.cordova@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8849. Twitter.com/randy_cordova.

'A Little Chaos'

Director: Alan Rickman.

Cast: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman.

Rating: R for nudity and sexuality.

Note: At Harkins Valley Art.