If F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby had married Daisy — if the middle-class Midwestern boy’s dreams of achieving happiness through wealth had all come true — you might have wound up with something very close to the story told in this fascinating and intimate documentary about what does and does not change in the gaining (and loss) of outrageous fortunes. Again and again, director Lauren Greenfield will tempt you to join with Fitzgerald in proclaiming that the rich are different, if by “different,” you mean “worse” or “grotesque.” The titular queen is Jackie Siegel, and her comically oversize breast implants seem of a piece with her claim that her (admittedly large) family is bursting out of its 26,000-square-foot house. But for every titter and gasp that she inspires, Siegel offers a reason to pause in the heaping of scorn. Oh, wait, she's a person?. The main truth is this: she really does love her husband and children more than she loves money. Siegel’s a superconsumer, but somehow, she’s not spoiled. It’s this mysterious and wonderful fact that keeps the story of her family’s economic freefall out of the realm of schadenfreude and somewhere in the neighborhood of American tragedy. (2012) — Matthew Lickona
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