Lady with a Til Schweiger complex: This movie has 99 problems, Johnny Depp is (not) one of them

The primeval year is 1991 AD and l’amour takes place between a French man and a French woman. He is 32, she is only 15. He is a popular director, she has been an actress since childhood and he has followed her for a long time. And now he wants her. She is not completely sure, but after a few dates on which he behaves she wants him too, a year later the two get married, in France that was still allowed at the time. His name is Luc Besson. She calls herself Maïwenn, her first name is an old Breton name, she does not stick to her last name Le Besco.

In 1993, the two became parents of a daughter. In the same year, Besson records “Léon: The Professional” with twelve-year-old Natalie Portman. Maïwenn is sure that her Luc is talking about his relationship with her. She also has a small role. Also in 1996 in «The Fifth Element». Stupidly enough, her Luc falls for his 19-year-old leading lady Milla Jovovich. He wants to marry her immediately and completely and as soon as possible and Maïwenn has to go. “He told me he no longer likes my body,” she later announced. It was always just her body, nothing else. And that is exactly why, she says today, she identified herself with Jeanne du Barry (1743 – 1793).

So the Du Barry. One of 15 official mistresses of King Louis XV of France. And the last of the officials. The one who was by his side when he died of smallpox in 1774 at the age of 64. The daughter of a monk and a dressmaker was brought to him at the age of 18. She worked there for a few years as a model, saleswoman and courtesan, so as a noble prostitute. Two things hinder Jeanne’s immediate rise to become the king’s favourite: his reigning favourite, the Marquise de Pompadour, is ill but alive, and Jeanne herself is no noble.

But in 1764, de Pompadour finally died, Jeanne married her pimp’s brother and thus bore the title of countess. At the age of 26, she is officially the first lover at court, with lots of jewellery, money and her own castle. The king is very happy with her, after all, she is a professional who understands love acrobatics more than his previous aristocratic damsels. His servants allegedly made fun of him and said, “Haha, he’s just never been in a real one.” Brothel.”

This is what Maïwenn identified with. And because she prefers to write screenplays, direct and play the lead role herself (this is also called the Til Schweiger complex or the Orson Welles complex), she is now playing the 18th and 26th films at the age of 47. Jeanne. No trick technique. She just plays to “young,” which often has an annoyingly awkward effect in the first half of the movie. But that’s how she wanted it. Til and Orson would certainly support them. It also doesn’t matter that Du Barry was blonde and Maïwenn has dark hair and always pretends to be Charlotte Gainsbourg.

The big riddle was: who will be their King Louis? Maïwenn asked two unnamed Frenchmen who seemed suitable to her, but both refused. She then made a list of “dream men.” On top were Gérard Depardieu and Johnny Depp. You can really blame Maïwenn for having no awake sensitivity, not a hint of it. She also defends director Roman Polanski. And beat up unwanted journalists with her own hands. Depardieu refused.

Idiot remained. Maïwenn’s request reached him two months before his trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. Lo and behold, the unemployed dork didn’t mind a job as king. His advantages were obvious: he was no stranger to French because of his marriage to Vanessa Paradis, and for a decadent, aging king, he didn’t need to lose weight or reshape his booze-blown face. Everything was extremely ideal, Depp was in his finest Dépardieu phase.

The shooting started after the big trial. After millions of Depp fans chased Amber Heard through the net and mud. That didn’t worry Maïwenn, because a different sow is chased through the village every day, she says, and MeToo finds her rather annoying. Still, the shoot turned into a nightmare. According to the film crew, she and Depp fought a duel in late puberty. Sometimes he didn’t show up for the shoot, the next day she didn’t, out of revenge. Pleasant ambience. Especially if, like in Versailles, you can only shoot on Mondays when there are no visitors.

It really was a courtly fuss between the two, and today she says in Der Spiegel: “How do you work with someone who is not interested in the creative process? With an actor who ignores the result of the work? Will I ever do anything again? do with him? The answer is no. It is difficult to communicate with him. We stopped talking to each other.” Still, Depp doesn’t do a bad job, playing Louis very subdued, but always with subtle, little borrowings from his wacky previous roles, a little Jack Sparrow here, a little Mad Hatter there.

The last favorite of Louis XV. temporarily banished to the monastery by the dying king, it was his attempt to atone for his extremely sinful life. Jeanne du Barry lost her head to the guillotine on December 8, 1793 at the age of 50 at the Place de la République in the center of Paris. Her previous page Zamor had betrayed her.

She had once received the dark-skinned boy as a gift and turned it into a fashion accessory. Boys like him soon replaced exotic monkeys at court, and the women discovered that their white skin looked even better in the embrace of an African or Indian. child. As an adult, Zamor defected to the revolutionaries. Jeanne Du Barry tried to avoid the scaffold through bribery. She offered her jewelry to the executioners in vain.

Despite the personal eccentricities of Maïwenn and Depp and despite the top talent in costuming and wigs, “Jeanne Du Barry” has become a well-behaved, conventional film, predictable and clichéd, and above all a new hall of mirrors from Maïwenn, whose costumes, of course, come from Chanel. That her Du Barry has a striking obsession with the very young Dauphin is easy to explain – he is played by Maïwenn’s son from his second marriage. This is also part of the Til Schweiger complex.

“Jeanne Du Barry” is in theaters now and probably on Netflix in a year.