JEANNE DU BARRY - Mark Reviews Movies

Jeanne du Barry, Vertical

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 1, 2024

An emotional flatness and a thematic hollowness define Jeanne du Barry, a biography of the eponymous mistress to the penultimate king of France before the Revolution. The story is supposedly one of deep passion and abiding love, despite distinctions of things like class and manners, as well as in the face of gossip-driven palace intrigue. That the movie's central lovers have no real chemistry is one thing. Indeed, co-writer/director/star Maïwenn doesn't attempt to create a connection between these characters in even superficial ways, let alone the existence of deeper ones suggested by the movie.

Instead, the movie is all pageantry, as the filmmakers re-create the excessive splendor of the pre-Revolution royal court at Versailles. The production filmed at the palace, too, and the backdrops of the interiors and gardens of the place are far more compelling than any of the human elements on screen. They're mainly present to wear costumes and broadly pantomime that something important is occurring beyond the extravagant outfits and within those luxurious spaces.

The story amounts to a bland, straightforward biography of the woman who will ultimately become known as Jeanne du Barry, the illegitimate child of a servant and a monk who rose from those humble beginnings to some notoriety as a courtesan to the French elite. Initially raised in the noble manor where her mother worked, a young Jeanne learned to read, was sent to a convent to protect her from ignoble life, was kicked out by the nuns for reading salacious books, and ended up a sex worker, anyway.

Through her assorted connections to various nobles, including the Comte du Barry (Melvil Poupaud) and the Duc de Richelieu (Pierre Richard), Jeanne (played by the director) is brought to Versailles, with her aristocratic clients believing the king might fancy her. He certainly does, and one look from Louis XV (Johnny Depp) results her in being summoned back to the palace so that he might get to know her more intimately.

For whatever reason, no outward spark of ardor, infatuation, or even attraction exists between Maïwenn and Depp, and it's not as if the screenplay by the director, Teddy Lussi-Modeste, and Nicolas Livecchi gives the actors much to work with in that department, either. Their relationship amounts to some locked eyes, bright smiles, and a few kisses, while their conversation has to do with how the two will maintain some kind of decorum while being lovers. Louis is married, after all, although that has never stopped him or the long line of French monarchs from having multiple mistresses, but it all has to look proper—at least in terms of her station and how she presents herself in public.

Most of the drama revolves around how much the king's daughters despise Jeanne and attempt to undermine her reputation within the court. The movie attempts to make Jeanne a tragic, put-upon protagonist, who has a kind heart (She's given a servant of African heritage, obtained via the slave trade, as a gift but treats him well, which is supposed to justify the whole arrangement, apparently), a quick wit, and an unfaltering loyalty to Louis. The movie makes Jeanne a supposedly noble figure—more so, which is the intended irony, than the many people trying to destroy her—without bothering to provide a sense of her beyond her relationship to the king and the abuse she suffers at every turn.

The whole thing is shallow and repetitive, as the king's daughters, upset that their father would dishonor their mother and her memory so, attempt to sabotage Jeanne's standing within the court. Eventually, the daughters try to sway the future wife of Louis' successor (played by Diego Le Fur), who treats Jeanne with some respect and decency. The bride-to-be, of course, is Marie-Antoinette (Pauline Pollmann), a naïve and eager-to-please Austrian princess whose arrival at Versailles reminds us that all of this pomp and pomposity is approaching a violent end. As for what the movie itself thinks of that fate, it definitely admires how photogenic the characters are in their ensembles, the spacious rooms of the palace are in natural sunlight, and the gardens are at any time of the day, particularly sunset.

In other words, the movie, like its characters, has no thoughts apart from the dispassionate love story, the reductive palace melodrama, and the blind acceptance of Jeanne as an admirable, misunderstood, and forgotten figure of history. Even if that is the case, Jeanne du Barry doesn't make a convincing argument, just as it doesn't make for a convincing biography or romance.

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