Steven Williams and Stefani Robinson‘s Chevalier (Searchlight, 4.7.23) is a rare historical drama that doesn’t, for a change, smack of presentism. It’s the real-deal saga of a gifted young mulatto fellow from Guadalupe (Kelvin Harrison‘s Joseph Bologne, aka Chevalier de Saint-Georges) vs. evil snooty racist whiteys of Paris and Versailles.
Bologne was a superb violinist-composer, a skilled sword-fencer and a lover second only to Warren Beatty‘s George Roundy in Shampoo. I have a vague idea of how this story will play out, but I’ll tell you this much — any movie in which Marton Csokas plays a venal bad guy is itself problematic.
Ty Burr: “Chevalier [is a lesson about] how to take a grand subject – the life and times of 18th-century Creole violinist-conductor-composer Joseph Bologne — and dumb it down into a strident, shallow melodrama pitched at the rear balcony.”
Friendo: “Evil white people again — do they think this is going to make money?” HE answer: “:In ’20 and ’21 there was a strong belief among Hollywood wokesters that evil-white-people movies would strike a chord. Not necessarily with palefaces but among BIPOCs. I suspect that they realize now that Chevalier is a flop waiting to happen. Shown in Toronto, they bumped the release into April ’23….what does that tell you?”