Entertainment
Review: A bit fizzy with romantic intrigue, 'Widow Clicquot' raises a glass to a woman innovator
Most Americans (and wine enthusiasts around the world) are no stranger to Veuve Clicquot Champagnes and their distinctive, marigold-labeled bottles signifying celebration and luxury. But non-French speakers wouldn’t understand the full name of the brand and, therefore, are missing out on the whole story.
The word “veuve” in French means “widow,” and so the name of the wine is also the name of the film about the woman behind the beloved bubbles. “Widow Clicquot” is the biopic of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin (played by Haley Bennett), who took over the wine business of her husband, François (Tom Sturridge), when she was widowed in 1805 at age 27, making her one of France’s first female entrepreneurs — and one of its most celebrated.
“Widow Clicquot” is adapted by Erin Dignam and Christopher Monger from the 2008 book “The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It” by Tilar J. Mazzeo. The screenplay hits the big moments and skims the details, but it also leaves room for director Thomas Napper to lean into flashes of lyrical dreaminess. The film is a rich blend of historicity and poetry, revealing Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin’s story in a nonlinear fashion that starts out deeply romantic, turning more pragmatic as she leans into her power as a businesswoman.
This is Napper’s second feature as a director, though he has served as the second-unit director on many of Joe Wright’s films, which is why this feels very much like a Wright project (and not only because it stars Wright’s partner Bennett, who has also starred in several of his films). There is a certain sensuality to Napper’s direction of “Widow Clicquot,” lensed by Caroline Champetier, that’s evocative of Wright’s aesthetic: an earthy, wholesome beauty familiar to fans of 2005’s “Pride & Prejudice” that’s tied to the land and its seasons.
It’s the land itself that starts Barbe-Nicole’s journey to creating one of France’s greatest Champagne empires. Immediately after his funeral, she’s propositioned to sell her husband’s vineyards to Monsieur Moët (Nicholas Farrell). Though her father-in-law, Philippe (Ben Miles), disapproves of her new license, she has the right to do what she wants with the property as the inheritor of his will. Philippe gives her a limited chance to prove she can run the vineyard as she sees fit, and she immediately dispenses with hierarchies of labor in order to operate as a “wheel,” which is initially a tough sell for her vineyard supervisors.
She continues on her quest to fulfill François’ dreams of winemaking on their land, always moving forward, and forging an alliance with Louis Bohne (Sam Riley), a wine merchant and close confidant (and perhaps more intimate friend) of her late husband. If the vineyard is to be successful, Barbe-Nicole must be able to get her wares through Napoleonic embargoes, and she puts all of her trust in Louis to transport her precious cargo. She develops a new technique for making Champagne that becomes all the rage in St. Petersburg thanks to Louis’ canny salesmanship, and in their collaboration, they too become inseparable, which sets off suspicions about the young widow.
All the while she is haunted by memories of François, each flashback revealing more nuance to the story. Initially it seems as if they led an almost impossibly idyllic life of pastoral beauty and wine-soaked sensuality; François a sort of manic pixie vintner boy who lounges among the vines, teaching his wife tasting notes in bed. But her memories peel back to show more of his troubled, tormented character, the challenges she endured and the complicated nature of his death.
It’s a lot to unpack in a swift 90-minute film, and the script is weighted in favor of Barbe-Nicole’s emotional journey rather than her entrepreneurial one. Short shrift is given to her innovative achievements in winemaking (still used to this day) in order to focus on the men in her life, something of a disappointment. Nevertheless “Widow Clicquot” is a worthy, if abbreviated, toast to the woman behind one of the most iconic Champagnes in the world.
Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
‘Widow Clicquot’
Rating: R, for some sexuality and nudity
Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes
Playing: In limited release Friday, July 19
Movie Reviews
Bad Accent Video Review: Pierce
Pierce by Nelicia Low is screening at New York Asian Film Festival.
On the occasion of Nelicia Low’s debut, Pierce, screening at New York Asian Film Festival, Panos Kotzathanasis talks about the film, Low’s background and its connection with the movie, the way she approached the story, the relationship of the two brothers among them and with their mother, acting cinematography and editing, in one of the best movies of the year.
Movie Reviews
'Bad Newz' movie review: Even Bollywood nostalgia can’t save this plotless film
Anand Tiwari’s ‘Bad Newz’ delivers what it promises by its name: bad news. A story with no plot line, no character arcs, a hasty resolution, and just plain mediocre writing makes the movie a thoroughly dissatisfying watch.
Saloni Bagga (Tripti Dimri), becomes a mother of twins by the rare occurrence of heteropaternal superfecundation. The film follows her life which led to her pregnancy by two different men at the same time and the drama that ensues from this messy situation.
The story had the potential of serving a message about women’s agency and their right over their bodies.
But the build up in the first half of the film leads to nothing as the action falls flat on every front.
Dimri, with beautiful performances in the likes of ‘Bulbbul’ and ‘Qala’, is just a stereotypical, passive heroine of mainstream cinema here, with no insightful or memorable contribution. Vicky Kaushal as the bubbly Punjabi mama’s boy Akhil Chaddha does what he can to salvage this movie, but even his swagger and occasionally humorous gimmicks clearly fail to be enough to make up for the pointless storyline. Gurbir Pannu (Ammy Virk), the other sexual encounter and potential love interest of Saloni, does absolutely nothing to be worthy of notice or comment.
The only momentary reliefs are the clear call-backs to quintessential, iconic Bollywood movies such as ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’, ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ and other such blockbuster fan favourites. However, nostalgia and metanarrative jokes have become a fairly common tool, and Tiwari does nothing new. Overall, quite an unremarkable movie. The only reason you might want to sit tight till the credits would be to enjoy Vicky’s trending moves, with Tripti dancing silently in a corner as she remains true to her character.
Published 20 July 2024, 00:07 IST
Entertainment
Review: 'Longlegs' walks in with a wintry moodiness, and its thrills are just getting started
Filmmaker Osgood Perkins’ eerie, occultist serial-killer horror thriller “Longlegs” opens with a psyche-rattling sequence, barely a minute or two long, in which he crafts a chilling sense of shock, awe and humor simply through shot composition, editing and performance. It unsettles the viewer on a bone-deep level, the tension bursting like a bubble on a bravura music cue.
It is scary — only because of how it is presented formally, not necessarily thanks to any of the basic actions or imagery on screen — and it is thrilling because Perkins announces from the outset his audacious approach to tone as well as his mastery of cinematic technique to create suspense. The tension never lets up throughout “Longlegs,” though it is peppered with a dry, black humor that somehow just makes everything more disturbing.
One should know as little as possible about “Longlegs” for the best viewing experience. In fact, feel free to stop reading now if experiencing an entirely unpredictable plot and the sensation of sickening dread mixed with bleak humor for 100 minutes sounds like an appealing cinematic experience (it is). But we shall proceed here, because “Longlegs” is too rich a text not to unpack a little, and the obstacle course of writing around its true horrors is a worthy challenge.
Though it’s a facile comparison, “Longlegs” feels like Perkins’ version of “The Silence of the Lambs,” in that it follows a young female FBI agent as she plays cat and mouse with a serial killer (there’s also a shared enthusiasm for British ’70s rock on behalf of our respective boogeymen). Special Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) has the preternatural skill and drive of Clarice Starling, and both characters similarly fail to mask their vulnerability with toughness, though in different ways.
Harker’s not a people person but she is highly intuitive, perhaps even a little bit psychic. She’s recruited by Special Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) for precisely that quality, to start reinvestigating the cold case of a series of possibly related family murders wherein a person called Longlegs has claimed a kind of distant responsibility through coded notes. As she dives deeper into her research, it’s revealed that Harker is strangely connected to these cases. (Is she psychologically gifted or are these memories?)
Nicolas Cage plays a strange suspect in one of his more outré and unrecognizable performances. He is brilliant and clearly having a blast committing wholeheartedly to his wacky and terrifying choices (though Cage has never not committed above and beyond in every performance). Alicia Witt also appears as Harker’s mother, with whom the agent has a close but complicated relationship. Monroe, with a sort of placid sullenness, is the eye of the storm amid these colorful characters, including her hard-charging boss Carter.
The performances work in tandem with the astonishingly meticulous and precise filmmaking: Perkins, the son of “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins, has a marvelously methodical eye in crafting cinematic images and sound. With cinematographer Andres Arochi, who works magic with the structure of light, Perkins centers Harker in carefully composed shots where she is dwarfed by the environment, emphasizing her smallness and sense of feeling overwhelmed. The camera toggles between objective observation of our protagonist and an alignment with her point of view and actions. Slow, creeping zooms mimic her vision, and backward tracking shots continuously drag her into danger, her gun always drawn.
The camera bears an omniscient, ominous knowingness that can’t always be trusted (with echoes of Monroe’s “It Follows”), but repeated shots and scenarios suggest connection and comparison between different characters across time, so there is an internal rhythm to the filmmaking even as the story defies traditional logic.
“Longlegs” is also a masterpiece of production design (by Danny Vermette) and set decoration (by Trevor Johnston) that suggests an era and a place (mid-1990s Oregon) and fills in that world with pertinent visual information. Perkins also peoples the cast with interesting and memorable supporting roles that make the world of “Longlegs” bigger, richer and weirder, and helps us to understand the characters further, seeing how they interact with the world around them.
However, “Longlegs” does not offer up easy answers about itself on a macro level. Watching it feels like a riddle, the film itself a code to crack, and by the time it’s done, the whole puzzle has not yet been solved. That’s OK. Understanding everything is not the point in a film that offers such a delicious roller coaster ride of bad vibes. Just jump on board and let Perkins guide the way — the journey is more than worth it.
Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
‘Longlegs’
Rating: R, for bloody violence, disturbing images and some language
Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Playing: Now in wide release
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