Cold frames

A Little Chaos is a period drama directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet as a woman charged to design and build a grand fountain garden for Louis XIV at Versailles. The film is, I noted from the poster, ‘the official film of RHS Gardening Week’, which may or may not be a hotly contested title, I just don’t know. All I can tell you is that it is, in fact, more of a love story than a horticultural story, and while it has occasional pleasing moments, and is lavishly costumed, it manages to do what I do whenever I try my hand at gardening. That is, despite my best intentions, and slogging my guts out, I somehow kill everything stone dead.

It opens with the King’s landscape architect, André Le Nôtre (Matthias Schoenaerts) interviewing candidates to take on the fountain garden. Sabine De Barra (Winslet) is one such candidate, whom he first sees from his window, approaching the house, pausing by a circle of topiarised Buxus balls (is that what they’re called?), and pushing one pot slightly out of line.