Chevalier

One the trickiest parts of writing a historical-fiction about an incredibly impressive person who many are unfamiliar with is hitting the right note so as to convey their incredible skills without making them feel like a cartoon. Your job first and foremost is to tell a story, and thus you have plenty of freedom to rearrange and play with reality to accomplish that. Most audiences are smart enough (I think) to see “based on a true story” and mentally prepend “loosely”, at least until they have a chance to look it up online afterwards. So if you leave stuff out or soften it to make it more believable or relatable or even invent occurrences which play into the themes of their life, that can be fine, as long as it serves the story well.

Chevalier introduces us to the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Joseph Bologne (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) as a young man (he’s implied to be in his twenties, I think), already fully formed albeit not yet fully exposed to the world. He is a prodigious practitioner of the violin and musical composition, and equally talented at swordplay. Paired with those is an incredible charm and a cocksure nature, making him an instant favorite amongst the people. But as he begins his journey through the ranks of French high society, he must contend with the fact that merit is not the only thing that matters to the elites. For he is a free Black man in pre-Revolutionary War France.

To be completely honest, the very first scene of this movie caused my eyebrows to raise skeptically, and they never came back down. We start out by seeing Mozart (Joseph Prowen) directing an orchestra before a packed audience, when Joseph takes advantages of a break to ask if he could come on stage to play together. What starts out as a collaboration turns into a competition, as each man furiously showboats on the violin. However, it’s clear from the moment Joseph approaches the stage that Mozart has underestimated this man, and quickly his eyes grow wide as even his best efforts cannot best Joseph. Meanwhile, Joseph looks comfortable (albeit intense) as he shreds on the instrument to thunderous applause, causing Mozart to storm off stage.

So the movie is already making the incredibly bold claim that this young upstart is more talented at a younger age than one of most renowned and brilliant and enduring composers to ever live. And this is the only scene in which Mozart appears, relegating him to a prop by which Joseph can be built up. It’s not a terrible scene by itself, but the use of Mozart transforms it into a loud and clumsy one. Especially because not only does it appear they never met in real life, but Mozart was significantly younger than Joseph appears to be. So this scene is purely trying to say “The best composer to ever live is someone you haven’t heard of”. Which does play into the themes (as we’ll talk about later), but in a very heavy handed way.

This is heightened further by the next major scene showing him defeating an expert swordsman in a exhibition fight, after which he is awarded the title of chevalier (a French equivalent to being knighted) by Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton) herself. What’s interesting here is both that it’s a watered down version of an actual event (he beat the master swordsman while he was still a student!), and how the scene’s quick edits and juxtaposition with the Mozart scene greatly reduce its impact.

The whole opening is a bit of a whirlwind as they try to establish his life and how he got to where he is. Because that’s the thing; despite being told through the lens of Joseph Bolonge and parts of his life, it’s not really about him. The movie only wants to use him to talk about racism in pre-revolution France, and how that caused great artists to be forgotten by history. As a character, Joseph is not particularly dynamic; he has no personal struggles to overcome. All his obstacles are external, and most relate to his race. He’s an expert at everything he does, a hit with the ladies, and loved by the people and elites alike (well, those who he hasn’t actively embarrassed). The only “flaw” we see is that he trusts these people have his back, allowing for his downfall later on. Which is to say it’s a tragic flaw, although I’m not sure how much being aware of their conditional support would have enabled him to save his position. Rather, he probably just never would have accepted such an honor to begin with. So I’d realistically say he has no flaws to speak of, which is the least interesting type of character. As I said, I think that’s intentional, in order to focus on the impacts of racism in that society. It just leads to a much less interesting story.

So what does it do with the themes of racism? I mean, not much. At least, nothing interesting. The idea is that it is basically irrelevant to the ruling class how deserving you are; if you’re Black, you’re inferior. Not only that, but even those who fancy themselves your friend will turn on you in order to hold on to power. The false friend in this case just so happens to be one of history’s most well-known Queens. It also talks about remembering where you came from, and that no matter how much you integrate into their world they’ll always see you as an outsider. So these are all well-worn ideas, and they’re not presented in interesting ways. They ring true, sure. But they don’t form a very interesting core, nor give you much to chew on.

What about the central narrative, what drives the film forward? Joseph is putting together an opera in order to win the prestigious position of conductor of the Paris Opera in a battle with a visiting, non-French conductor. The weird thing is the movie seems to imply he only went for it to be close to Marie-Jospehine (Samara Weaving)? He meets her at a party when he hears her lovely singing voice (possibly provided by Sumudu Jayatilaka; she’s the only singer I can find in the IMDb credits). Immediately afterwards, he expresses a strong desire to go out for the conductor position, confident he could do a much better job than this foreigner, after he and Marie Antoinette quipped to each other through his entire opera. And I mean, his plan works; he casts Marie-Josephine as his lead, and after some “will-they-won’t-they” they begin a passionate affair. But it seems incredibly reductive to imply that was his primary driver. He’s portrayed as so ambitious, so driven, that I don’t know why he needed that extra push. It feels almost insulting.

Then there are the performances. Only the two leads, Harrison and Weaving, stand out, and it’s not for good reasons. It’s the way they speak, how they carry themselves, their postures and whole vibe just feel like people in a play trying to appear old-timey. It feels like they’re about to directly address at the camera at any second. Initially, I thought maybe it was bad casting, and there was nothing the actors could do about it. But then I learned Harrison was Christian in Cyrano, in which he was quite good. So he can do period French drama. I haven’t see period piece Samara Weaving, but given how much I enjoy her other work, I’m more likely to call it a bad performance.

So just an unremarkable film overall, albeit one which is trying to call attention to fine topics, and inform you about a real person you’ve likely never heard of. I just wish the film was more engaging.