Johnny Depp has made far more headlines than movies during the past five years, thanks to a series of marital, legal, and professional scandals that have considerably dented his A-list stature. Those continue to this day, as the release of Jeanne du Barry has been greeted with a fresh round of reports that the Hollywood icon was a scary figure on the set of writer/director/star Maïwenn’s French period piece. (Maïwenn has since walked back those rumors.) Yet amidst all this external noise, Depp’s “comeback” performance turns out to be infinitely less wild and over-the-top than his tabloid reputation. Embodying King Louis XV with an understatement that’s as wry as it is imposing, the actor proves that he remains one of cinema’s most magnetic presences—even if his latest project doesn’t do terribly much with him.
Following its world premiere at 2023’s Cannes Film Festival, Jeanne du Barry, which hits theaters May 2, is primarily notable for Depp’s participation, even though he’s merely a supporting player in its 18th-century tale. Instead, the true focus is on its title character (Maïwenn), who’s born Jeanne Vaubernier to a cook and a monk. Seemingly consigned to a simple life of obscurity, the young Jeanne enchants an aristocrat but is seen as a threat by this older man’s wife and is thus sent to a convent, where her fondness for racy reading material gets her tossed onto the streets. There, with her poor mother by her side (and working as her de facto agent), she becomes a prostitute of some repute. Jeanne especially catches the eye of Count Guillaume du Barry (Melvil Poupaud), who takes her into his home, where she comes to love his son Adolph (Thibault Bonenfant) and is befriended by the elder Duc de Richelieu (Pascal Greggory).
Much of Jeanne’s early days are recounted in Jeanne du Barry with the aid of dignified narration, regal compositions (emphasis on magisterial master shots), and Stephen Warbeck’s imperial orchestral score, all of which lend the film its reserved, semi-dreamy stateliness. Jeanne’s initial trajectory is the stuff of fairy tales, since after wowing high-society’s men, Jeanne learns that the King (Depp) has an interest in meeting her. This is a boon for everyone involved, including Guillaume, who gladly accepts a pouch full of gold coins as payment for facilitating Jeanne and Louis’ rendezvous at Versailles. The proceedings get a minor jolt from Jeanne’s subsequent session with the ruler’s trusted valet Jean-Benjamin de La Borde (Benjamin Lavernhe), who lays out the specific rules and behaviors required of those entering the monarch’s orbit. Of particularly amusing note is the demand that Jeanne never turns her back on the King; instead, she must take tiny backward steps whenever departing.
Jeanne du Barry is mildly interesting when fixated on the ins and outs of life at Versailles, where all manner of decorous customs and rituals rule. Maïwenn’s Jeanne is both a lowly nobody eager to fit into this environment and an inherently rebellious soul who cares more about pleasing Louis’ heart and libido than his sense of propriety, and they create sparks during their initial encounter together, thereby solidifying their bond. With the Queen nowhere in sight (and, shortly after Jeanne’s arrival, in the grave), Jeanne becomes the King’s cherished partner. While he becomes energized by her naughty flair—be it her violation of a rule that says she can’t look into his eyes during her official court introduction, or a later outing in which she wears men’s clothes—she’s less appreciated by Louis’ daughters, led by Adélaïde (India Hair), who view her as unworthy of their company.
Maïwenn stages her action in one luxurious drawing, dining and bedroom after another, as well as around Versailles’ expansive grounds, and Jeanne du Barry captures the overwhelming opulence of this most elite of enclaves. The costumes are ravishing and the lighting (often by candles) is sumptuous, and yet there’s nonetheless something staid about the film. The clash between formality and passion winds up being rather tepid, as does the story’s investigation of Jeanne’s predicament as a woman repeatedly hemmed in—and ultimately doomed—by circumstance. The director shrewdly goes light on depicting Jeanne as a proto-feminist, just as she spends fleeting time on the racist reaction by Adélaïde and her hangers-on to Jeanne’s young African page Zamor (Djibril Djimo). Still, whereas didacticism is mercifully absent, so too is energized drama; from one episode to the next, the script (co-written by Teddy Lussi-Modeste and Nicolas Livecchi) coasts along as if on rails.
No matter Jeanne and Louis’ amorous connection (and the chemistry shared by Maïwenn and Depp), Jeanne du Barry is too placid to arouse. Tensions escalate once Marie Antoinette (Pauline Pollmann) makes her debut at Versailles to wed the future Louis XVI (Diego Le Fur), but even at this crucial moment in French history, the film is frustratingly tame. Worse, it limps across the finish line, with Louis’ death drawn out to interminable lengths. To the end, Maïwenn compellingly stirs the imagination through fascinating details about this long-gone world, such as the lamp that’s lit on the King’s bedroom balcony to indicate that he’s alive. Unfortunately, those only sporadically compensate for the lethargy that eventually consumes the film just as fatally as smallpox does the sovereign.
What’s left, then, is Depp, who spends the majority of his screen time strutting about in majestic outfits and wigs, and sitting semi-slumped in armchairs alongside his favorite companion. It’s a role that hinges less on dialogue (of which there is little) than on comportment, attitude and intensity, and in those regards, the actor is more than up to the challenge. Whether he’s making funny faces at his beloved while going through his absurdly pampered morning routine, or chiding his daughters and Marie Antoinette for their treatment of Jeanne by simply giving them individual, imposing stare-downs, Depp confirms that he’s lost none of the poise and charisma that’s made him a superstar for the past four decades. It’s undoubtedly too small a part to revitalize his frayed name, but in terms of demonstrating that he’s still capable of commanding a big screen, it’s akin to a minor victory.
