Jeanne du Barry

Walking into a screening of Jeanne du Barry in 2023 felt less like attending a movie and more like witnessing a high-stakes diplomatic summit. Between the deafening roar of the social media discourse surrounding Johnny Depp and the film’s high-profile debut at the Cannes Film Festival, the actual movie almost felt like an afterthought. We live in an era where the "meta-narrative"—the stuff happening on Twitter and in courtroom livestreams—often threatens to swallow the art whole. But once the lights dimmed and the lush, 35mm grain filled the screen, I found myself transported not just to 18th-century France, but into the singular, stubborn vision of its creator, Maïwenn.

A Rebel in Silk and Powder

The film follows the meteoric rise of Jeanne Bécu, a woman born into poverty who used her wit, beauty, and sheer refusal to follow the rules to climb the social ladder, eventually landing in the bed of King Louis XV. Maïwenn doesn't just direct; she occupies the title role with a performance that feels pointedly modern. She plays Jeanne as a woman who treats the stifling etiquette of Versailles like a tedious joke she’s the only one in on.

I’ll be honest: there’s a distinct "vanity project" energy here that might grate on some. Maïwenn is in nearly every frame, and the camera gazes at her with an adoration that borders on the religious. However, I found her charisma hard to deny. In an era where period dramas often feel like they’ve been sterilized for modern sensibilities, her Jeanne feels messy and human. There’s a scene where she first meets the King and breaks protocol by looking him directly in the eye, and for a second, the movie captures that genuine, dangerous spark of two people recognizing a shared boredom with the world. I watched this scene while sipping a lukewarm cup of chamomile tea that had grown a thin film on top, and yet the onscreen opulence was so thick I could almost smell the expensive perfume and unwashed wigs.

The Elephant in the Golden Room

Let’s talk about Johnny Depp. This was his first major role following a very public, very ugly legal saga, and the curiosity factor was through the roof. As Louis XV, he is... surprisingly quiet. It’s a performance of shrugs, heavy sighs, and prolonged stares. Since his French is functional but limited, the script leans into the King’s stoicism. At times, it works—he carries the weariness of a man who has been "The King" for too long. At other times, I felt like he was essentially playing a very expensive, very tired wax figure that occasionally nodded.

It’s a far cry from the manic energy of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise or his work with Tim Burton in Sweeney Todd (2007). It’s a subdued, almost ghostly presence. The real heart of the film, surprisingly, isn’t the romance between the lead pair, but the relationship between Jeanne and the King’s valet, La Borde. Benjamin Lavernhe (who was brilliant in The Sense of Wonder) absolutely steals the movie. He plays the bridge between Jeanne’s chaos and the King’s rigidity with such soulful, understated grace that I found myself wishing the movie was actually about him.

The Cost of Admission

Visually, the film is a knockout. Shooting on location at Versailles is a flex that few productions can pull off, and the cinematography by Laurent Dailland captures the gold leaf and hall of mirrors with a rich, tactile warmth. In our current landscape of "Volume" sets and flat, digital lighting that plagues so many streaming-first blockbusters, seeing real sunlight hit real silk is a relief. It’s a film that demands to be seen on a big screen, even if the script occasionally meanders like a tourist lost in the palace gardens.

The film does struggle with its own identity. Is it a feminist reclamation? A tragic romance? A middle finger to the "cancel culture" era? It tries to be all three, and as a result, the pacing in the final act feels rushed, leaping through years of history to get to the inevitable guillotine-shaped shadow looming over the horizon. There were moments where the dialogue felt a bit thin, perhaps a byproduct of the rumored friction on set. Apparently, Maïwenn and Depp didn't always see eye-to-eye during production, with reports of "screaming matches" over call times. You can almost feel that tension in the edit; the film feels like it's holding its breath.

Ultimately, Jeanne du Barry is a fascinating artifact of our current cultural moment. It’s a lush, traditional costume drama caught in the crosswinds of modern celebrity scandal and the changing tides of theatrical distribution. While it doesn't quite reach the heights of period masterpieces like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006) or Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite (2018), it possesses a defiant spirit that kept me engaged. It’s a movie about the cost of being noticed, released at a time when being noticed is the most dangerous thing you can be.