Jeanne du Barry

There are two ways to watch this film, one as a simple costume drama that is a cut above the average, the other is as someone (like myself) who knows much of the underlying story. And necessarily finds some aspects jarring. An American viewer needs to know right off that Maïwenn, the director and star, is a little like Miranda July in being a polymath who has dipped into varied levels of creativity. It was natural then for her to cast herself in the lead, even if, for different reasons, she later considered that a mistake. But in a sense one is watching a Maïwenn vehicle as much as a slice of history. Also, voice-overs rarely work in dramatic films and are something of a distraction here. While the film highlights some fun period details, it often does so self-consciously, wearing its research on its sleeve. For the viewer who comes with no background knowledge of this tale, it is probably about as satisfying as Coppola's "Marie-Antoinette", if less artificial and anachronistic. Now, for someone who knows Du Barry's story, the film is largely a missed opportunity. Historically, Maïwenn is woefully miscast, not least because she from the start has a rather aristocratic bearing and so one never really gets the development of a woman who could have spent her life in upscale bordellos, being seductively sexual and very unsophisticated. Du Barry herself seems to have been an exuberantly sexual woman whose magnetic sexuality drew men to her long before she reached the King. Maïwenn has a certain thoroughbred sensuality, but nothing like the kittenish, boy toy sexuality that might better have been incarnated by Marilyn Monroe or any number of modern actors who radiate a similar politically incorrect desire to please men and be their plaything. (One story has it that Louis, having spent an early night with her, gleefully told a courtier he had never tasted such pleasures; the other man wryly responded, "That is because Your Majesty has never been to a whorehouse." One cannot imagine such an anecdote being told of Maïwenn's Jeanne.) Also, by all accounts, Du Barry really was very sweet, so that the first favor she asked from the King was the pardon of a peasant who had been condemned for killing the child she had by a priest. Sweet enough too to charm the stern nuns who received her after her exile. And naive enough to return to Paris, where she was in immediate danger, when she was already safe in England. In this regard, too, it is annoying to see her last words reported as a kind of life wisdom, when she famously and credibly cried out something like, '"No! Just another minute! You're going to hurt me! Just another minute!" Very much at the end a woman of the people sturdily clinging to Life. There is a great story to be told of her life, with layers and nuance and development of a woman of the people into an honored lady of the court (even after her exile). But this is not it.