‘Jeanne’ takes liberties with French king’s mistress’ story
French filmmaker Maïwenn stars in her latest creation, “Jeanne du Barry,” a watchable and entertaining costume film where she plays the famous 18th century mistress of King Louis XV.
Maïwenn Le Besco (“Polisse), who is known professionally by just her first name, is a French triple threat — writer, director, actress. Her last two pictures, “My King” (2015) and “DNA” (2020), were barely released in the United States, but this time she gave herself distribution insurance in the form of Johnny Depp, whom she cast as Louis.
Depp is the reason that many Americans will see “Jeanne du Barry,” and though his performance has been largely criticized as flat and listless, I think he’s quite good in the role. He exudes the quality of a man weary of kingship, who feels trapped inside formality. Jeanne du Barry, who treats him like a man and not a title, gives him some relief, but there’s only so much she can do for him or him for her.
The film’s first half-hour is full of sensitive touches and interesting details. Jeanne is born the child of a servant in a wealthy household, but the master of the house is kind and tends to her education. Years later, she becomes a courtesan and catches Louis’ eye, which sets in motion lots of preparation before she can take her place in the royal bed.
If you remember the movie “The Other Boleyn Girl” (2008), Henry VIII’s method of foreplay was to go up to a lady-in-waiting and say, “Tonight.” That was it. But the French have always been a lot more methodical and meticulous, and so Jeanne is examined by a team of doctors and then sequestered for a full week to minimize the chance of venereal disease.
As played by Maïwenn, Jeanne is a happy-go-lucky sensualist, with just enough cunning to maintain a certain mystery for her royal boyfriend. But she is naive in dealing with court intrigue. A 21st century woman living in an 18th century world, she thinks that being natural and guileless will win over her critics, but it doesn’t work that way.
Casting herself as a naive young woman is Maïwenn’s strangest move. The real Jeanne du Barry was 25 when she became Louis’ mistress, and the king was 58. But Maïwenn was 46 at the time of filming, and her natural quality, far from naive, is aggressive, arch and shrewd. Maïwenn spends so much time in this film trying to make herself look harmless by smiling that after a while your face will hurt just watching her.
It seems Maïwenn wants to present Jeanne and Louis as rough contemporaries, so that when he gets gray hair, she does, too. There’s something poignant about the idea of two illicit lovers staying together over many years, but by the time Louis died in 1774, they’d only been together six years.
In a similarly bizarre move, the film tries to make something sentimental out of Maïwenn’s motherly devotion to her African servant, Zamor. But if you know the true history, you know that Zamor turned out to be a horror show, who, years later, would join the revolution and make it his mission in life to have du Barry beheaded. And he succeeded! This is practically like watching a biography of President Lincoln that brings in John Wilkes Booth as a likable fellow.
It’s hard to know what Maïwenn was trying to accomplish here, besides giving herself a juicy and entirely sympathetic historically based role. She achieves that, and she’s good in the film — Maïwenn always is — but the “what’s the point of all this” question takes “Jeanne du Barry” down just a notch.