I love a good period drama, all those gorgeous costumes and lavish sets! And they’re even better if they take place in France. I just finished A Little Chaos on Netflix, starring Kate Winslet as a fictitious garden designer, Sabine de Barra, who is tasked with creating one of the garden features of Versailles. Le Nôtre, the great landscape designer, is played by Mattias Schoenaerts (from Suite Française). While he is obsessed with rigorous order in his professional designs, his personal life is in turmoil. De Barra and loves color and looser plantings, so of course, a romance develops between the opposites. The film takes enormous liberties, portraying Louis XIV as a gentle, grieving widower, rather than as the power and image obsessed Sun King. It’s not a fabulous film – a little slow and maudlin at times – but it’s lovely to see another side of the great French palaces and the soundtrack is quite delightful.

The Gardens of Le Nôtre at Versailles