When I was a kid my mostly absentee father took my mother and I on a tour of a time share, knowing good and well we had no money to purchase a share of the mountain condo. We simple went and endured the "pitch" to get a free lunch, some gifts and a day in the mountains. I remember the salesman doing his scripted pitch because he had to, not because he thought he had a chance of getting a sale. That salesman never would have made it at one of David Seigel's Westgate properties. "Always Be Closing", Seigel and his family pitched vacation dreams and sold them , not caring if people could afford it. Seigel's family is the subject of Lauren Greenfield's (THIN) The Queen of Versailles.
Seigel and his younger wife Jackie have built their fortunes through the sub prime selling of dreams all the while slipping further into their own reality. A reality that included the building of what would be the largest private home in the US, 90,000 square feet of Charles Foster Kane like excess in Orlando Florida. You may also remember Seigel as the CEO who e-mailed his employees that if Mitt Romney didn't win the Presidential election, he might start having to lay off people. Hint, hint. Despite his "rags to riches to rags" story the Seigel's do not make it easy to root for them. Sure, Seigel shows some regrets when having to lay off call center employees when the recession hits and the banks came calling. But that's clearly outweighed by the trips to McDonald's wife Jackie likes to take in the family limo, the private flights (at one point they have to fly with the "regular" people, try not to cry for them.", the stuffed pets, the lizard no one remembers to feed, the servent who lives in a forgotten playhouse and on and on. Not to mention David Seigel's creepy "let's have the Miss America contestants over to leer at" party, where he "jokes" about replacing Jackie with a younger beauty queen or two.
Even when Jackie visits her hometown, reflecting on her past and helping a friend out who was on the verge of foreclosure, any sympathy is lost when she asks the dumbfounded Hertz rental guy what "her driver's name is", having never had to rent a car she would have to drive herself. Its at this point, the downfall, that Greenfield makes the viewer feel like a bit of a horrible person. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun to watch the strange spiral into reality the Seigels take. Greenfield stays the course, lingering on the crumbling empire. Its almost delightful to watch Jackie and David go from happily pointing out all of their excesses to trying to explain them away. It is in this delight you realize that in a way, you may be as "bad" as the Seigels. No matter how detached from reality they were, is it fair to want someone to lose it all?
Greenfield does a good job of exploring this world from all sides, and takes hold of a concept that too many doc film makers fail to grasp. When your subject's story takes a turn, let the camera roll and go with it.
Don't worry though, the family has managed to right themselves and the palace in Orlando is finished and still their home and not the bank's. They have been able to get back to having more than two servants and even tried to sue Greenfield. The kingdom is a bit smaller now, but its still a kingdom. Maybe its ok to root against them, just a little.
Available via streaming and blu ray/dvd.
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