Joyce Glasser reviews Widow Clicquot (August 30, 2024) Cert 15, 90 mins. In cinemas
The phrase “missed opportunity” has seldom been more apt than it is when applied to Thomas Napper’s biopic of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, known in champagne circles as La Veuve (or the Widow) Clicquot. Why isn’t this quintessentially French biopic – Clicquot champagne is one of France’s oldest and best-known exports – in French? This is the little-known story of a real-life French woman: a contemporary of the fictionalised The Count of Monte Cristo, who appears in a terrific French adaptation of that novel that is also released this week.
The real missed opportunity is that having secured the rights to Tilar Mazzeo’s 2008 biography, Napper’s direction and Erin Dignam’s script squander the occasion to highlight the life of a brilliant, creative and intuitive businesswoman at a time when, under the Napoleonic Code, only widows had rights to property (hence the company name) and almost no women ran businesses.
Instead, from Haley Bennett’s barely audible – whispery, meek and low-throated – voice to a camera fixated on her ample, lily-white bosom, Barbe-Nicole’s life has been reduced to a tragic love story. The empire she built is – through continual flashbacks – attributed to her emotional debt to her handsome, loving husband François Clicquot (Tom Sturridge). François became his father Philippe’s partner and took over the business at a young age. The innovative young man did the groundwork on which his widow would build before his untimely death at 30.
To consolidate their huge, rival textile businesses, the father of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, 21 and Philippe Clicquot (Ben Miles), the father of François, 23, married their children in 1798. Fortunately, as the film spends a long time showing, the two are in love. François involves Barbe-Nicole in his plans for focusing on the increasingly successful wine segment of their parents’ business, while she raises their daughter.
Seven blissful, save for François’s increasingly erratic behaviour, years after their marriage François is found dead, in a possible suicide. The official cause of death was a fever from typhoid, but the filmmakers dismiss this for the more romantic alternative and milk it for all it’s worth.
Phillipe, advanced in years and devastated by his son’s death, wants to liquidate the business. Barbe-Nicole asserts what rights she has and agrees to many conditions, including an internship, before she convinces Philipe to let her take over.
Fortunately, she has the guidance of – not to mention a dramatised sexual relationship with – the efficient Louis Bohme (Sam Riley). Bohme was a travelling salesman extraordinaire who, though this is not dramatised, François met on one of his many European business trips.
While this sexual relationship has no role in the official Maison Clicquot story, Edouard Werlé (Anson Boon), born Eduard Werler in Prussia, has a big role. But alas, it’s not romantic, so he remains such a minor character in the film you are never quite sure who he is.
But Werler is central to Barbe-Nicole’s story. When, in 1828 he arrives in Reims looking for a job, Barbe-Nicole, a good judge of character, recognises something in the young man despite the fact he’s Prussian. Under her guidance he goes through the ranks until, as the company’s Commercial Director, he opens the lucrative British and US markets for the House.
Long before Harvard Business School put cases about the failure of family businesses to train successors on the curriculum, Barbe-Nicole was ensuring the longevity of her empire by grooming Werlé (although why she did not train her daughter is another film). And when Barbe-Nicole died, Werlé took over the company adding his name to the labels.
Speaking of labels, there is almost nothing in the film about how Barbe-Nicole protected the copyright of her champagne as well as enhanced the marketing, by the design of the labels and the corks. But that’s not a surprise because Barbe-Nicole’s biggest invention, a riddling machine, receives barely a mention.
Yes, we see Barbe Nicole in her drawing room, tackling cloudy, super sweet wine with large bubbles that emerged after the second fermentation. But we are not really sure what she’s doing. The process of riddling did away with these problems, and the breakthrough was a game changer, ultimately copied by the competition but not before Clicquot was the market leader.
The emergence of rosé wine and champagne is another Clicquot success story that is passed over for repeated flashbacks of Barbe-Nicole, bosom heaving, and the Chattertonesque François’s romantic suicide.
What is dramatised albeit half-heartedly, is Barbe-Nicole’s biggest gamble of her career, defying Napoleon’s blockade of Russia by ensuring her bottles flooded the Russian palaces and drawing rooms following the war.
Unfortunately, Napper guarantees that all the suspense of this tense episode of La Veuve’s early career is removed from the event. The camera only leaves the chateau (the film was shot on location) once, for a pointless court case where Barbe-Nicole puts her company ahead of her personal life in a bold and defiant statement. If only the film had done the same.
