Jeanne du Barry review – surprisingly tame period drama is tasteful to a fault

The controversial opener for this year’s Cannes film festival has caused a stir not only for its decision to cast Johnny Depp (his first role in three years), but also for the alleged behaviour of its writer, director and star, Maïwenn, who was accused of assaulting a journalist – a charge which she later, almost gleefully, appeared to confirm. But the film itself, Jeanne du Barry, is anything but controversial – at least in the execution.

The actress-turned-director has wrangled the story of Louis XV's last and most beloved mistress, the titular Jeanne du Barry, into an unfocused but mostly watchable two hour-movie. If Maïwenn herself has proven anarchic, though, her film is a surprisingly tasteful and restrained affair, handsomely mounted and made without any of the winking or fourth wall-breaking that has come to mark so many modern period dramas, but lacking any qualities to set it apart from a million more of these things. Marie Antoinette it ain’t.

In what can only be seen as an act of meteoric vanity, Maïwenn casts herself as the “impossibly beautiful” Jeanne du Barry, who rises up through the ranks as a low-born woman only to use her wit and charm to land herself in the court of Louis XV – beloved by him, but loathed by his daughters, who (drawn like Cinderella's evil sisters) disapprove of his philandering. But Maïwenn, unfortunately, feels miscast and always wrong in age; her sense of shaking up a stuffy system and arousing a sleepwalking king is suggested but never really felt. And it's difficult not to be amused, though perhaps for the wrong reasons, when the movie calls for Jeanne to be paraded through the palace of Versailles as the French elite fawn and awe at her beauty. Then we remember that Maïwenn cast herself in the role.

Depp, meanwhile, sulks – though not ineffectively – his way through proceedings with the kind of bored, disillusioned manner that one might expect to find in a worn out monarch. But it's also the same look we've seen in washed-up – or even disgraced – movie stars, forced to work in their later years within systems that no longer want them. In this sense, Depp is well cast – looking slightly bloated and frayed around the edges, speaking French in a way that suggests he's only comfortable doing so in a single, muted register. For better or worse, it's fascinating to ponder the way the role plays into his future as a “movie star” who has fallen out of public favour, and who has himself disowned Hollywood.

The screenplay, by Maïwenn, Teddy Lussi-Modeste and Nicolas Livecchi, is effective in its concise rendering of “notable moments,” but everything is spelt out in a way that denies the movie nuance it desperately needs – embarrassingly so in the final reel, when we're suddenly told that, oh, Jeanne was beheaded 15 years later by guillotine. Why wasn't that in the movie? Well, that wouldn't quite fit with the ornate, state-funded storytelling that Maïwenn is going for. Elsewhere, it's unclear as to whether this wants to be a movie about its titular character or the sad king. In the end, it doesn't feel like either, with little tension involved in what should have felt a little more like a life or death situation for its protagonist. We are never really worried or concerned about her fate.

Nothing properly shines here, but everything is easily digested. Is there any merit in that? This to say: Jeanne du Barry is not a mess or anywhere near as horrible as its cursed assemblage might suggest, and the impressive production and costume design is not to be sniffed at. But for all the riches on display, the result leaves one feeling surprisingly short-changed – the most shocking thing about the film, considering the controversy, is how unshocking it all is.

Jeanne du Barry was screened as part of the Cannes Film Festival 2023. A UK release date is yet to be announced.