I very rarely watch documentaries; it usually takes quite a bit to catch my eye and have me face reality when what I really want is escapism. When you put the words "queen" and "Versailles" in a title with a picture of blonde bombshell on the cover, however, you've caught my attention. When you tell me it's about the ultra rich and their fall from grace, you've caught me hook, line and sinker.
Meet David Siegel. David Siegel is a septuagenarian billionaire who is the owner, founder, president, CEO or what have you of Westgate Resorts, the largest privately owned time-share company in the world. As he puts it, he is the "Time-share King". He is the kind of man who hob-nobs with Donald Trump and apparently single-handedly got George W. Bush elected president. The fact that his home is in Orlando, FL makes me less doubtful of that claim...
Meet Jaqueline Siegel. Jackie is quite obviously David's trophy wife. She is in her mid-40s, has seven children (plus her white-trash niece, bless her heart), was a model and Miss Florida, and is a licensed engineer. She is a collector, that is she likes to collect large quantities of things, though I would not say her taste is anything but equal to her standing. Jackie tans, Jackie shops, Jackie eats McDonald's in her limo.
In the mid-2000s the Siegel's where making news by building the largest home in the United States, modeled after the palace at Versailles. Their current home was over 20,000 square feet, but they were "bursting at the seems"--all ten of them. Versailles (that's Versailles with a hard "s" at the end, if you live in Florida) was to have 90,000 square feet, cost about $100 million to construct, and was planned to have nearly every amenity you could think of. It really was going to be the palace of the modern age.
And then the sub-prime mortgage collapse of 2008 happened. From what I can surmise this documentary was supposed to be about the construction of Versailles and was probably going to be nothing more than an examination of one disgustingly wealthy family. But I think fate stepped in and had this crew choose to do their film about a family who makes their money from a very unstable market, and one that was devastated by the economic downturn.
Over the course of two years, instead of watching the house go up, we watch it remain stagnant while David and Jackie try to keep their world in place. David calls it his "riches to rags" story. It is a rather unusual experience watching this film. On the one hand it is incredibly gratifying to see the great and mighty, with extravagances beyond my wildest dreams, have to "suffer" (you should see their Christmas tree). Oh, woe is them, who will have to remain in their enormous, if not palatial, house. On the other hand, Jackie is just about the nicest lady in the world, and although her kids and husband are all blood-suckers, I really hated to see her disappointed. She's very funny and just about as warm and hospitable as cherry pie.
We all have the American Dream that one day we will be the rich and famous. Or maybe not. Maybe your dream is simply to raise your children in a home that is simply better than the one you yourself grew up in. In either case, these people achieved that and we resent them for it. I felt embarrassed that enjoyed seeing their nice things taken from them, and at the same time felt rather queasy in hoping their life could also just go back to normal so David wouldn't be so stressed and take it out on his wife and kids.
The film doesn't do much more than bring us into a world we only ever catch glimpses of on the television. Their world doesn't really exist to us. What the documentary inadvertently does, I think, is cause us to reflect on our own wants and desires and place them into perspective on what we need. But then, maybe needs change when your social standing does. Do they really need ten kitchens and a sushi bar? Maybe not, but how on earth could we possibly know?
3/4
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