Chevalier review — Bridgerton meets the French Revolution in a tale of race, love and music

Art still rattles power. That old lesson played out again last month as French director Justine Triet won the Cannes Palme d’Or for courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall. Emmanuel Macron’s government was assailed in her acceptance speech; culture minister Rima Abdul Malak responded in kind. It all makes a neat preface for period biopic Chevalier, a lavish raid of the dressing-up box that doubles as a portrait of a France in crisis. 

The subject is Joseph Bologne, known as Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the 18th-century composer we see as a child arriving at boarding school. “No one may tear down an excellent Frenchman,” the boy is told by his noble father. And excellent Bologne certainly is, growing up both a prodigious musical mind and champion fencer.

But behind such simple counsel, reality is hard and complex. Bologne is also black, his mother an enslaved Senegalese woman. In adulthood, he is charismatically played by Kelvin Harrison Jr. Throughout the film, Frenchmen insist he cannot be counted among their ranks.

Yet the first time we see Harrison Jr, his opponent is from Salzburg: a cocksure Mozart upstaged in a bout of duelling violins. The possible lack of historical veracity is made up for with kitschy brio. The scene is clever and fun: a nod to Bologne’s frequently cited status as the “black Mozart”. But the splashy entrance is also deceptive. While the score deftly incorporates his work, you also feel a nervousness from director Stephen Williams and writer Stefani Robinson at being seen to get too nerdy with the detail of the subject’s musical genius. Instead, the movie inches all manner of material to the margins in boiling a life down to a central storyline: the contest for leadership of the Paris opera, suffused with “let’s do the show right here” energy, and an ardent affair with the Marquise Marie-Joséphine de Montalembert (Samara Weaving).

Bigotry and tragedy loom, and the film has moments of power and outrage. But the précis risks reducing the multitalented Chevalier to a mere starburst of charisma. (And the French Revolution to faceless extras.) The Bridgerton visuals don’t help. Rarely does the screen not heave under a deadweight of Versailles bling. In Chevalier, the French aristocracy speak with crisp English accents save for Harrison Jr, who stays American. In truth, it can be hard to hear anyone over the din of the production design.

★★★☆☆

In UK cinemas from June 9