Year:  2022

Director:  Stephen Williams

Rated:  M

Release:  August 3, 2023

Distributor: Disney

Running time: 108 minutes

Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Kelvin Harrison Jr., Samara Weaving, Marton Csokas, Minnie Driver, Lucy Boynton, Ronke Adékoluẹjo

Intro:
… builds historical precedent up to a rousing crescendo, with incredible acting, an intoxicating soundtrack, and a script with an indelible understanding of living life as a social party trick rather than your own person.

In the same vein as Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (a character who also has a prominent role here), Joe Wright’s Cyrano (also starring Kelvin Harrison Jr.), and Baz Luhrmann’s literary adaptations, Stephen Williams’ stylised recounting of the musical career of Black French composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), wants modern audiences to care about the past. It doesn’t lean as far into anachronisms as, say, A Knight’s Tale, but there’s a rather infectious modernism to it that not only fits the subject matter, but adds to the urgency of such a figure getting the biopic treatment.

While there’s a noticeable divide between the lush ambitions of the production and the actual budget, visually and sonically, the film breathes the same French aristocratic façade that Bologne spends much of the film trying to ingratiate himself in. Jess Hall’s cinematography frames the high-class décor with pillowy soft lighting, while John Axelrad’s cutting allows for scene transitions and montages that are as harmonious as any symphony.

To say nothing of the actual soundtrack, with Kris Bowers providing cathedral-sized soundscapes for the non-diegetic music, while Michael Abels offers string-shredding compositions for everyone ‘playing’ on-screen. Stuffy classics are turned into the baroque equivalent of arena rock, while an old slave spiritual becomes music to be guillotined by. It doesn’t hurt that the whole thing kicks off with a Hendrix vs. Clapton-inspired violin duel between Bologne and salad tossing afficionado Mozart (Joseph Prowen).

As for the text, with the French Revolution looming in the background, Stefani Robinson’s scripting builds on the sexual and racial politics of the (to)day to highlight Bologne’s position as a reluctant ‘model minority’. Taught by his slave-owning father to be an “excellent Frenchman” – in a continuation of the myth that rewards through labour within the system, is enough to excuse the inherent prejudices of that system – his prestige as a talented musician is balanced on the precarious whim of his White benefactors, up to and including everyone’s favourite cake goblin Antoinette (Lucy Boynton). It even uses the standard ‘set in a non-English-speaking setting, yet everyone speaks it anyway’ trope to highlight Bologne’s lack of connection to his Caribbean heritage. He’s as out-of-the-loop on the mother tongue as the prospective audience.

It also emphasises the nature of choice and control within a corrupt system, epitomised by a stirring monologue from Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo as Bologne’s mother, clarifying how those in power perpetuate the illusion of them both being in an individual’s hands. Serial script slayer Samara Weaving as Bologne’s beau Marie-Josephine adds a lot of texture to that idea, with her performance really driving home just how far that clinging to conditional acceptance can go. Bologne’s performing for the masses goes from mere entertainment to something even more vital, putting his tablature in the history books on his own terms.

Chevalier builds historical precedent up to a rousing crescendo, with incredible acting, an intoxicating soundtrack, and a script with an indelible understanding of living life as a social party trick rather than your own person. It may stick close to the sheet music for this genre at times, and the softer rating can get distracting (a film with this many full beds but zero nudity is a bit suspect), but as a dramatised introduction to a figure worthy of legend status, it plays all the right notes.

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