After the flowers comes the pot… Johnny Depp was acclaimed by his fans on Tuesday night’s red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival and received a far more mixed response from the French and international press for his performance in the film Jeanne du Barry.
• Also read: Johnny Depp hits back, calling what has been said about him ‘horrible fiction’
• Also read: Awards and autographs for Johnny Depp, back in Cannes
Described at times as “a pompous biopic” at other times as “a huge theatrical affair”, the historical drama Jeanne du Barry was not unanimous among critics who saw the film on the Croisette on Tuesday.
French actress-director Maïwenn’s new feature film in which Johnny Depp plays King Louis XV. slips has indeed received favorable reviews here and there. But in general, the first reactions are rather negative.
Some critics weren’t exactly kind to Depp, who, we recall, is making his big comeback in cinemas following the legal saga in which he faced his ex-wife Amber Heard on charges of violence.
The newspaper Libération does not go into detail, describing the 59-year-old actor as “a rican wreck at the end of the line”, “who articulates his replies like a speech therapist”.
British newspaper The Telegraph agrees, humorously emphasizing that “After Hulk Hogan, Depp is perhaps the least suited actor to play an Ancien Regime monarch.”
disembodied game
The criticism of the magazine “Les Inrockuptibles” scathingly highlights Depp’s disembodied acting:
“The most expensive element of the set is Johnny Depp, who plays Louis Antoinette. “We have rarely seen the actor so absent from himself, as if he were mentally lingering in his dressing room,” reads it.
The actress and director Maïwenn also goes through the wringer. For Widescreen, Jeanne du Barry is both a high-profile biopic and an awkward ego trip by its actress-director Maïwenn, adding that the film “made a lot of noise for not much when it’s not cinematic.” and intellectual mediocrity”.
On the other hand, some media were seduced by Maïwenn’s new cinematic proposal. Le Figaro believes that Jeanne du Barry “fulfills hopes”, while Le Parisien affirms that Maïwenn “is a classic film, but very contemporary and fully inhabited”.