Amid the glut of corporate biopics that have graced our screens recently—Air, BlackBerry, Flamin Hot, and so on—one biopic about the French champagne giant Veuve Clicquot stands out more than the others. Champagne itself is more appealing than a running shoe or a smartphone, while the winding vineyards of 19th-century Reims are a more seductive setting for a brand-building story than a small office building in Beaverton. The Widow Clicquot certainly makes the most of its setting, its undulating landscape, which is shot extensively throughout in dark, earthy tones, and, most importantly, the romantic stories surrounding the widow in question.
At just 27 when her husband died, leaving her the winery he owned, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot resisted takeover bids from male competitors, and instead turned it into a thriving international champagne company—the first of its kind to be run by a woman. All this, and she allegedly invented rosé champagne, in which case we all owe Madame Clicquot a good, or at least good, biopic.
The Widow Clicquot is essentially that kind of film, telling her story in a respectful if understated way, and benefiting from Haley Bennett’s (who also produces the film with her husband Joe Wright) quiet intelligence in the lead role. But don’t expect much French flair in what is the equivalent of an Anglo-American European pudding from British director Thomas Napper (in his first feature since his brutally slapdash debut Jawbone). As the somewhat oddly English title suggests, everyone speaks English in this corner of historic France.
But if the film is effective, and sometimes elegant, in compressing its subject’s enormous personal and professional achievements into a surprisingly lean 90 minutes, it’s not at all inspiring. (Bryce Dessner’s squeaky, neo-chamber score is an exception.) The most ambitious structural trick in Erin Dignam’s screenplay is a two-track narrative that follows widow Barbie Nicole’s repeated failed attempts to prove herself a trustworthy businesswoman while skeptical men stand in her way, while repeatedly returning to the final years of her marriage—in which her husband, François (Tom Sturridge), a passionate, rebellious winemaker, descends from eccentricity to outright madness. Both tracks make Barbie Nicole a somewhat reactive character, muted in one timeline by strict patriarchal norms, in the other by rampant male ego.
Her defiance of these obstacles is dramatized in the manner of businesswomen, with some tense agricultural metaphors. “They need to struggle,” Barbe-Nicole says of her new vines at one point. “And when they struggle to survive, they become more dependent on their own strength.” No prizes for guessing what else she might be talking about. Much of her struggle is against François’s tough-guy father-in-law Philippe (Ben Miles), a man who disapproves of Barbe-Nicole’s stubborn independence and his son’s unconventional approach to the family business, and who is an effective stand-in for the entire old guard of masculinity she’s trying to thwart (along with what we’re told is a refreshing modern champagne).
Instead, she surrounds herself with younger, more sophisticated male allies, including her foreman George (an underused Leo Souter), her accountant Edward (Anson Boone), and, most importantly, the swanky wine merchant Louis Bohny (Sam Riley)—whose rule-breaking tendencies come in handy when Barbe-Nicole hits on the idea of selling her champagne outside the strict trade embargo imposed by then-Emperor Napoleon. The details of this subversive (and not immediately successful) business strategy are more omitted than a viewer particularly interested in Veuve Clicquot’s history might prefer, though the film does carefully navigate the more interesting interpersonal dynamics of the widow’s friendship with Bohny—specifically, the suggestion that he and François were lovers.
François’s conflicted sexual identity, coupled with his increasingly fragile mental health, makes him the film’s most compelling and volatile character, a flaw that is exacerbated by the intensity of Sturridge’s performance. As sympathetic and ultimately exciting as Barbie Nicole’s career progression is, it’s the marital flashbacks here that have the most dramatic appeal—as well as the least predictable arc, as what is initially presented as a pure love that transcends material needs and social etiquette gradually turns into something more uneven and even abusive.
Such details are not the foundation of great companies, so it is natural that the Widow Clicquot neglects them in favor of marketing: a corporate mythology as finely crafted as the cinematographer Caroline Champetier’s brilliant lens. But human stories will always be richer, messier, and more brilliant than brand stories, even those as charismatic as Veuve Clicquot.
