Review: "Chevalier" Is A Messy, Misguided Pseudo-Biopic

Director Stephen Williams fails to create a compelling tale of the forgotten composer.

April 30, 2023

Humanity adheres to many principles that, across 195 countries and 8 billion people, get practiced differently. We believe in combating evil and fighting for good, even though some foolishly believe the former exists in drag shows and the latter comes from the political purity of the world's most unappetizing beer. Nonetheless, we have our principles.

Occasionally, principles make no sense; few prove as senseless as one usually encountered during Lifetime movies or The Jerry Springer Show (RIP).

We begin with the unassuming spouse who gets rocked into reality by catching their beloved with another. The showdown is coming, the meltdown imminent. Whether to rousing string music or a bell's ding, we will see the wronged unleash their fury on the wrongdoer.

Then, something peculiar happens. The scorned lover doesn’t attack the person who actually betrayed them but the one who was complicit in the betrayal. It is the saddening display of that most puzzling human “principle:” hating anyone who wants what we want.

Of course, understanding a sentiment does not constitute support. If something doesn’t add up, the equation won’t make sense.

It is why, approximately 20 minutes into Chevalier, when the titular composer spots his competition for the post of conductor of the Paris Opera and accosts his rival by challenging him to musical combat, we sit in our recliners, popcorn in hand, and say,

“What a prick.”

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Chevalier is the “story” of Joseph Bologne, a biracial French-Caribbean composer in pre-revolution France. As his father abandons him at a prestigious French school after taking him from his mother, he urges Joseph to “be excellent.” He is a boy of color in a white man’s world, and the only route to “acceptance” is soaring above his peers.

It’s a fact of his life, thus a built-in thematic foundation, but everything built on it is poorly-realized. Our introduction to Joseph is a concert by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a genius composer and master of the stage, which he commands confidently. He asks the audience for requests, at which point Joseph speaks up and challenges Mozart to a musical duel. Joseph seizes the opportunity, upstaging Mozart… at his own concert.

Everything that happens in a movie is a choice made for specific reasons. The film clearly wants us to root for Joseph; after all, the very next scene is his father sharing his wisdom. It wants us to acknowledge that everything he is and does is a product of the world around him, but it never feels that way. Joseph is so thinly-imagined that it feels like, regardless of race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation, he would be smug, pompous, disrespectful, dismissive, and abrupt. He would seek to humiliate his contemporaries for a fleeting moment of glory or walk up to someone at a social gathering and undermine their credibility to exalt himself.

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Protagonists need not be classically likable, but to make them viable, we must consider the context of their existence. Joseph gets loosely established as a crucial revolutionary figure whose arc from seeker of recognition to destroyer of monarchies will usher in a new era for France. Director Stephen Williams could spend an eternity claiming otherwise, likely with contrived ideas about complicated heroes and the nuances of humanity, but that is a man for whom it wants us to root. Unfortunately for Chevalier, Joseph is so arrogant, entitled, and obnoxious that whatever tragedy befalls him feels hollow, and his victories feel unearned, primarily because we want him to fail.

We wouldn’t watch someone chide a fellow job hunter at an interview with jibes at their supposed inferiority and say, “I hope he gets the job.” We wouldn’t watch a man seduce a married woman without having the measure of her husband’s character (that, in this case, is conveniently of a misogynistic bigot) and say, “I hope he finds true love.”

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Joseph’s story is not worth telling in the attempted context if he’s a wretched person. He cannot be a courageous hero defying convention if his revolutionary role stems only from personal tragedy, the rejection of that entitlement, even the maiming of the child born from his extramarital dalliances. He cannot be a viable protagonist if his journey begins at who he is and ends at who that is perceiving the world differently. He never sets aside his ego to evolve; everything stems from his arrogance, even as he concludes the film staring defiantly at Marie Antoinette.

It isn’t helpful that Kelvin Harrison, Jr. lacks charisma; even the film’s most urgent moments, like the potential breaking of Joseph’s hands and the murder of his newborn son, fall flat. Harrison, Jr. cannot muster any emotion, sentiment, or characteristic but arrogance. Everything feels laced with entitlement and bravado. It’s typical: establish titanic egotism to make the cratering collapse more devastating. Unfortunately, such rudimentary storytelling cannot make an impact. In a film covering so much in such little time (107 minutes), broad exploration will feel contrived, so Joseph’s characterization, and the surrounding elements that exacerbate it, are thin.

As such, many scenes and characters seem needless, particularly his mother, Nanon. Her return intends to signal something or act as a mirror to reflect the foolishness of Joseph’s devotion to joining the aristocracy, but it fails. The mother-son dynamic is written strangely and acted even moreso, with countless intense looks and strained conversations that evoke estranged lovers more than mother and son. Nanon’s only role is to impart wisdom; Chevalier has given its biracial protagonist a magical negro.

To what end? None. Never does his mother’s sage wisdom inform his perspective or alter his course, just like events only find new ways to reveal the depth of his one-dimensionality. Chevalier wants to show a new kind of hero, where heroism isn’t as easily-defined. Joseph doesn’t need to be classically endearing, all smiles and joyful energy before reality warps him into something dark and menacing. People can be flawed and exhibit unflattering traits while still possessing the qualities we admire and acting upon them accordingly.

Unfortunately, Chevalier never differentiates between those positive and negative qualities, making Joseph flat and uninspired, even musically. Part of his pitch to Marie-Josephine, the electrifying vocalist he wishes to secure for his play and bed, is promising "bold" and "spectacular" music. Without the proper in-film context to fully make such evaluations, we have only prior experiences. If you only know Mozart’s “Requiem” or Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” you'll still feel underwhelmed by Joseph’s offerings, which seem elementary and lifeless compared to his contemporaries. In no way does his music, or he as a person, feel “spectacular” or “bold.”

With decent dialogue, such developmental faults could get overlooked. Sadly, Chevalier sounds like a teenager trying to evoke the times for a creative writing assignment instead of a seasoned screenwriter working their words through a sieve, editing the content, and producing a worthy product. The film overflows with extraneous words and phrases and rarely rounds off its sentences, leaving innumerable awkward conclusions to stilted conversations.

In short, Chevalier offers nothing worthy unless you espouse the idea that we must know the bad to appreciate the good. Watching it grants insight into how horrible movies can be and thus allows appreciation of how incredible they are when done well. If nothing else, it shows the occasional folly of marketing. The film’s trailer tries to present Joseph's cinematic story as something worth watching, but the actual product is so terrible that the movie comes exactly as advertised. If all you’ve absorbed is that two-minute assault on the senses, leave it at that; Chevalier is not worth the additional 105.

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