What sort of person would decide to build the biggest house in America? Not just the biggest, but a monstrous, mega-mansion replica of the Palace of Versailles, overlooking Florida's Walt Disney World, complete with its own bowling alley, spa, 10 kitchens, 30 bathrooms, and an entire wing for the kids. And what sort of person would build this with no sense of irony, given the fact that the last royal residents of Versailles wound up losing their heads when the revolution came?
These are the questions that drove photographer-turned-filmmaker Lauren Greenfield when she met Jackie Siegel, the wife (by all appearances, the trophy wife) of Florida's billionaire time-share condominium king David Siegel. While Greenfield suspected there was a story here, she got more than she expected when — deep into filming the construction of the couple's extravagant new home — the 2008 financial meltdown struck, and the Siegels, like so many less well-off Americans, were left on the brink of foreclosure.
Greenfield's resulting documentary, "The Queen of Versailles," won the best-director award (documentary category) at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012, but the film, which plays like "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" plus schadenfreude, went well beyond the usual art-house circuit, grossing $2 million in its theatrical release and gaining a mass audience on cable TV and streaming site Netflix.