Jeanne du Barry: Meh Period Piece Finds French-Speaking Johnny Depp Amid Much Finery

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B-

It’s visually lovely. But there’s a hollowness at the core of Jeanne du Barry, despite the obvious talents of its writer, director and star, the almost absurdly watchable French performer Maïwenn, who approaches this tragic-comic 18th century fact-based story with a sympathetic view towards its protagonist without probing too deeply into anyone’s motivations.

The film, which opened the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, follows Jeanne Bécu, the “illegitimate” child of a monk and a cook who was “born to live in the obscurity of simple folk.” That is to say poor. But she is pretty, and a quick study.

When her mother lands a job with a rich family, the patriarch takes the precocious child under his wing, eventually financing her education at a convent, where she comes of age and excels academically, but is turfed by the sisters when they catch her reading erotica. Naturally.

Back with the rich family, and now a comely young woman, it isn’t long before the lady of the house decides that Jeanne poses too much of a temptation to her husband. Mother and daughter are soon expelled. It won’t be the last time Jeanne finds herself wandering in search of safe harbour.

With few income options available, Jeanne works as a courtesan, but she’s a cut-above both physically and intellectually, and she catches the eye of a patron with connections to the palace. Here, the film’s abiding hooker-with-the-heart-of-gold theme takes flight as Jeanne bonds with her lover’s young son, a deed notably — nay, tiresomely — repeated elsewhere in the film.

A member of the French court thinks Jeanne might have what’s needed to turn the discerning crank of King Louis XV, and indeed she does. Here the story switches from Jeanne’s tale as a savvy woman with limited resources to a budding love story between her and the king, played by Johnny Depp in his first French-language role, though his dialogue is minimal.

Naturally, the French court — most specifically, the king’s adult daughters — are scandalized by his affair with the free-spirited former prostitute, who has the temerity to look the king in the eye on their first meeting, to wear her hair down, and to don trousers. Yet the king has never been happier, and he parks Jeanne permanently at Versailles as his official mistress.

One senses this won’t end well, especially with the ambivalent Dauphin (played by Maïwenn’s son Diego Le Fur) and his haughty and antagonistic bride, Marie Antoinette, waiting in the wings. See also the incoming French Revolution.

The window dressing on Jeanne du Barry is genuinely fabulous. Costumes, sets, gardens, palaces… it’s all magnificent, captured by dappled sunlight and flickering candelabra flames by cinematographer Laurent Dailland.

Yet for all the finery, Depp is startlingly uncharismatic, though it’s unclear whether the intent was to keep focus trained on the dazzling Maïwenn as a woman who outshone a king, or whether Depp is slumming, along for the experience of a foreign-language setting where he wouldn’t be expected to improvise.

And anyway, we never come to understand the mettle behind these two. Is the king amused rather than offended by Jeanne’s nonconformist ways or is she such a freak in a sack that he simply lets stuff slide? Does Jeanne see herself as a trailblazer or merely an opportunist?

These inner complexities go unspoken even though both these characters clearly had goals and agendas, not to mention the skills needed to navigate the backbiting royal court.

On the plus side, there’s some humorous scenes, one of a gynecological bent — rarely a forum for guffaws — and another in which a two-way mirror (they had those then?) allows Jeanne to secretly observe the ridiculous protocols surrounding the king’s daily dress.

Jeanne du Barry. Directed by Maïwenn. Written by Maïwenn, Teddy Lussi-Modeste, and Nicolas Livecchi. Starring Maïwenn, Johnny Depp, Benjamin Lavernhe, and Melvil Poupaud. In theatres May 3.