2023-05-27 05:40:29
A costume film signed by Maïwenn? The project was surprising. The director is known for her talkative, exalted, bubbling, often intimate cinema, from “Pardonnez-moi” to « ADN », passing by “the Ball of the actresses” or “Poliss”. It was when she discovered the Comtesse du Barry in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie-Antoinette”, in 2006, that the filmmaker began to be passionate about this courtesan, the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a cook, who had become the favorite of Louis XV and the subject of a scandal at the Court of Versailles. With “Jeanne du Barry”, Maïwenn completely changed her method – she filmed on film, gave up improvisation and set up her camera for sequence shots – but kept her passionate, inhabited, lively style.
In sumptuous sets and costumes, the characters exchange in a free and light language. A hard-hitting voice-over completes the story (“Aren’t girls of nothing ready for anything?”, “What good is being innocent if others have guilty desires for you?”, “It’s grotesque/No, it’s Versailles”). “Jeanne du Barry” plunges us into the habits and customs of the Court in the 18th century via often comic sequences. Like those of the king’s levy or the gynecological examination of a courtesan finally considered “worthy of the royal layer”.
A splendid love story
If “Jeanne du Barry” turns out to be surprisingly contemporary, it is because of its purpose: the film, through which Maïwenn reports her trajectory in hollow, she who was the wife of Luc Besson at 16 years old before embarking on the cinema, tells the social rise of a commoner rejected by the Court. It also traces the fate of a woman “sold” by her mother, humiliated and abused by men and yet excited to be “offered” to the king.
The director has taken care of her secondary characters: the Comte du Barry (played by a chilling Melvil Poupaud) is cynical and detestable, the king’s valet meticulous and endearing (brilliant Benjamin Lavernhe) and the daughter of Louis XV (India Hair, very funny) with a wickedness that calls to mind that of Cinderella’s sisters.
« Jeanne du Barry », French historical romance by Maïwenn, with Maïwenn, Johnny Depp, Benjamin Lavernhe, Melvil Poupaud, India Hair… 1h56. In theaters from this Tuesday evening.
Faced with a Maïwenn totally inhabited by her role, Johnny Depp, with only a few lines and despite his American accent, imposes his presence. And gives this film which is also – above all – a love story a fairy tale side, enhanced by a magnificent staging.
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