Movie Review: Chevalier

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent biopic of classical musician and composer, Joseph Bologne.

Being a movie about a musician, obviously the music is one of the most important ingredients of the film. If the music isn't great than the rest of the film will simply ring false. Luckily the music here is wonderful. It will not only sound great to fans of classical music but also people who have never really sat down and listened to classical music. I can see someone becoming a classical music fan, simply because they saw this movie. The music is simply that good. This includes both Kris Bowers and Michael Abels' wonderful arrangements of the classical music used in this film (including some of the surviving works of Joseph Bologne) is simply beautiful to listen to and helped make much of this film an emotional experience. This movie also features some incredible set pieces for this music. This includes a truly wonderful opening scene that I can't praise enough (luckily this movie also has a great ending scene). 

Much of this film's charm also goes to a truly wonderful performance by Kelvin Harrison Jr. (who last year played another musical genius, B.B. King in Elvis (2022)). He brings such a charm and humanity to this character that it is hard not to connect to him (even when he is at his most egotistical) and during the darkest moments of this film, his performance can truly break our hearts. In every scene of this film his performance feels completely real. Harrison completely loses himself in the role and even if you are familiar with the actor's previous work, there are many times when you will forget you are watching an actor instead of the real person. 

This movie also handles its social commentary wonderfully. There is nothing subtle about this film's message, but that never makes it less effective. Joseph is a black man in a time and a place where a black man was considered subhuman. Because of this he fights hard to excel at everything because it is only when he excels and proves himself to be the absolute best does he receive any respect from anyone. With this being the driving force of the character, the commentary on racism cuts very deep. As we can see how prejudice not only effects people outwardly but inwardly as well. Especially how it can effect how one views themself. This also makes the social commentary not only connect with us on an intellectual level but an emotional one as well as it taps into the basic human desire to be accepted. 

Unfortunately this film does have some major faults. Probably the biggest is the romance. The main problem with the romance is that our main character's love interest never feels real. There is little to her personality other than what is needed for the story. Because of this she often times feels more like a story device instead of a main character. It doesn't help that many of the romantic scenes include awkward and forced sounding dialogue that is often not believable for a second. Her husband is even worse, simply being the bland mandatory villain, with his only personality traits being that he is racist and that he doesn't want his wife to follow her dream. Again he feels more like a story point than a character. Also most of the plot points that revolve around the French Revolution feel rushed and should have been given more time to develop. 

Those faults would have really hurt a lesser film, but luckily this is not a lesser film and there is so much that is great about this movie and this overcomes all these faults.