Jeanne du Barry at the Cannes Film Festival: Depp is great as Louis XV, but this is a real royal disappointment
Annes has a reputation for opening its festival with something horrific – Nicole Kidman in Grace is one of the main culprits. It’s often about something glamorous (The Great Gatsby) and it regularly takes cues from French films. Maïwenn’s Jeanne du Barry is both glamorous and French, but is it somber, as Cannes tradition dictates? No, it’s not, but it’s not very good either.
The film follows the title heroine (played and directed by the eponymous Maïwenn) from her idyllic youth as the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a cook to Versailles and the court of Louis XV. (played here by Johnny). Depp, no doubt happy to talk about something other than his previous marriage. Raised in a convent at the behest of her mother’s kind employer, Dumonceaux, she developed into a voracious reader of literature certainly unfit for such an institution. Eventually she will inevitably be kicked out.
But as the off-screen narrator asks, “Aren’t girls who come out of nowhere up for anything?” The answer to that would be a pretty resounding yes from Jeanne, who enthusiastically throws herself into a life of prostitution and eventually the Count meets Jean du Barry (Melvil Poupaud), who takes her into his household, and then Louis XV, who is instantly in love. Jeanne is summoned to Versailles and her life as a royal courtesan begins.
Maïwenn and Johnny Depp as Jeanne du Barry and Louis XV
/ Guide to the filmAt Versailles, the film begins to fall apart. The Daughters of Louis All good people look good: the Dauphin is a dope and his bride-to-be, Marie Antoinette, is a pretty, innocent woman abroad.
When the king gives Jeanne a black Bengali boy, only her critics are racist and cruel. And while the director clearly wants to celebrate Jeanne’s disregard for court etiquette – by looking the king in the eye; dress up as a man; wearing outrageous new fashions; Running – it gets tiring quickly.
But the movie looks great. The costumes are fabulous and the sets are beautiful. There is a wonderful moment during Jeanne’s first meeting with the king when, as a child, she caresses a golden statue of Louis and later caresses his actual face. One can’t help but think of Depp, that golden young man whose looks may have faded but whose charm is undiminished here.
After movies like Mortdecai and the Pirates series, it’s great to see Depp in a subtle and calm mode – more Colonel Joll from Waiting for the Barbarians and less Jack Sparrow – and in French at that.
Still, this offers little to the already rich genre of costume dramas set in the closing years of monarchical dynasties, and while Jeanne romps in a free-spirited way, it offers no new perspective on a historical period (Pablo Larraín’s Spencer). or Marie Kreutzer’s corsage are obvious comparisons).
It’s a disappointment after Maïwenn’s previous films, which include the sombre Polisse, about a journalist reporting on a police juvenile detention unit, or My King, for which Emmanuelle Bercot won Best Actress at Cannes in 2015. Maïwenn is a talented and intelligent director, but like her heroine, she is at the court of Louis XV. not at home.
Jeanne du Barry screened at the 76th Cannes Film Festival; The UK release date is yet to be determined
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/jeanne-du-barry-cannes-film-festival-2023-movie-review-johnny-depp-maiwenn-b1081378.html Jeanne du Barry at the Cannes Film Festival: Depp is great as Louis XV, but this is a real royal disappointment
