Support Frock Flicks with a small donation! During Snark Week and beyond, we’re grateful for your monthly pledges for exclusive content via Patreon or your one-time contributions via Ko-fi or PayPal to offset the costs of running this site. You can even buy our T-shirts and merch. Think of this like supporting public broadcasting, but with swearing and no tax deductions!
Nope, Jeanne du Barry (2023) still hasn’t been released in the U.S. and most parts of the world … but it is finally available for streaming in France, and through the magic of VPN I was able to relive the thrill. If you’ll recall, we did a video review of the film this past summer (as well as a trailer review). But, because so few images were available, I wasn’t able to share the full craziness. Part of me wants to wait to do this until this film is ever released in the U.S., but will it ever be?
To recap, du Barry (1743-93) was famously the final mistress of French King Louis XV, and her low-born origins (she was not just a commoner but a former prostitute) led most of the Versailles courtiers to look down their noses at her, including Dauphine Marie-Antoinette. This film is directed by French actress/filmmaker Maïwenn, who is most well-known internationally for having played the alien Diva Plavalaguna in former husband Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997) but has done several critically applauded films in France. It stars Maïwenn as du Barry and Johnny Depp as King Louis XV.
I’m not going to spend too much time on research because I’m mostly here for the lolz and scoffing, but I thought I’d start us off with a good reference image for the kinds of fashions worn by the aristocracy in this period:
Now, let’s look at the main costume choices in the film, designed by Jürgen Doering, because they are INTERESTING. In general, the filmmakers try to set du Barry apart by dressing her in modernized manic pixie dream girl costumes, but while most of the secondary characters are decently dressed, there’s some notable exceptions. So focusing on the WTF…
After some uninteresting costumes worn by very young du Barry, here’s her as a sullen teenager:
Du Barry eventually becomes a prostitute, and she’s debuted at a brothel like this:
Du Barry becomes the belle of the brothel in her Kim Basinger-goes-to-the-Oscars dress:
Let’s compare all of this with du Barry in her early days:
Du Barry meets various aristocrats and moves on up in this chiffon and velvet jacket that looks like it was designed by MC Escher:
Underneath she wears a coordinating rayon velvet bustier with spaghetti straps and metal grommets, possibly from Hot Topic:
Du Barry is summoned to visit the king, and she rebels by sticking with her simple white dress:
While mom gets a “The Poor Didn’t Want This” weirdly high-necked gown:
Most of the courtiers wear relatively decent costumes and hair for the late 1760s, although I spotted this guy with his French ponytail à la the 1980s:
Du Barry gets to check out the king’s daughters at his levée or dressing ceremony. For now, they’re reasonably dressed but don’t worry, that will soon change.
After shagging the king, we find that du Barry believes in chemises but not in ones with sleeves:
When Queen Marie Leczinska dies, her daughters wear mourning … acceptable if costumey on the eldest, WTF on the youngest:
Du Barry has to get married so she can gain a title and be introduced at court. She’s married to the Comte du Barry in a stripey dress and what seriously looked onscreen like a pillbox hat:
Du Barry gets trained up, and eventually looked out for, by valet/manservant La Borde. She wears Yet Another White Dress, he wears a waistcoat that turns out to be a dickie.
Du Barry gets presented at court in a modernly-seamed court gown that’s clearly an homage to Norma Shearer’s famous “rocket dress” from Marie-Antoinette (1938):
Louis looks decent from afar:
But his jacket is trimmed with what looks like gold rhinestone trim:
Meanwhile, FOR NO EXPLICABLE REASON EXCEPT TO MAKE ME HURT SOMEONE the elder daughters wear what can only be described as crimped, side-turnip wigs:
Du Barry gets installed at Versailles and wears Yet More White Dresses:
She actually gets her hair styled “up” but clearly hates it and reverts to her shaggy split-ends/ no hairpins look:
La Borde hangs around and helps out, usually in a decent court uniform but occasionally in a lace bib:
Cue more white dresses:
Du Barry scandalizes everyone by wearing a men’s-style riding habit that matches the king’s:
Mom visits court and is dumpy:
Louis surprises du Barry by gifting her the Petit Trianon; she wears a Chanel-type suit for the occasion. Several of the costumes in this were in fact designed by Chanel (read more at Women’s Wear Daily), and this was one:
Du Barry visits the Bitchy Daughters wearing a striped black? brown? and blue dress that matches the suit worn by her page, Zamor, who is “given” to her. Her lady-in-waiting rewears a clunky costume from La Révolution:
Meanwhile at least two of the Bitchy Daughters are in back-laced gowns, the worst being pious Louise:
Du Barry becomes so fashionable she inspires others to similarly wear white and embrace their split-ends:
She hangs with the king:
Learns to play the cello in I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck weird sleeveless bodice:
Marie-Antoinette arrives to marry the dauphin! Fanny called it in our video, her outfit is totally a call-back to the arrival dress from Marie Antoinette (2006). Meanwhile the Bitchy Sisters embrace weird stripes as a way to make fun of but also copy du Barry, along with giant birds’ nest hairdos that are full drag queen:
At a dinner in du Barry’s honor, she’s yet again in white (zzz) with one side of her hair pulled back with a bridal accent:
This was another ensemble made by Chanel, and it had a crazy headpiece that luckily they ditched:
Meanwhile the Bitchy Daughters look vaguely acceptable:
Marie-Antoinette looks perfect, although her hair would be higher; she looks like that early sketch of du Barry (above), in fact!
At some event, Chanel takes over again, and we get a ruffly toilet-paper roll-cover NIGHTMARE:
Marie-Antoinette is pretty as a picture, while the dauphin seems to think he’s in Led Zeppelin:
I actually love the color-coordinated outfits worn by the Bitchy Sisters here, although more for carnival than for court:
Du Barry’s adopted “son” dies in a duel. She wears black and looks like crap, the Bitchy Sisters literally mock her while sporting side ponytails:
At another gaming event, du Barry has a sad, the Bitchy Daughters have a bitch, and Marie-Antoinette refuses to speak to du Barry. I’ve just realized Noailles is played by the same actress who played Campan in Farewell, My Queen. Her hair is super Edwardian:
But she’s not the only one whose hair has been hit by the crazy stick:
Marie-Antoinette continues to be the most historically dressed/styled:
Marie-Antoinette gets her portrait painted in a very 1960s-Victoria-Holt-novel-cover style with loose hair by a finger-in-the-light-socket-be’haired Vigée le Brun:
Marie-Antoinette finally acknowledges du Barry despite du Barry dressing like it’s 1849:
Du Barry’s hair comes down though, phew:
The king gets smallpox and while everyone’s on standby, only du Barry CARES, so she wears a 15-20 years too early jacket and skirt ensemble:
The Bitchy Daughters keep it semi-period:
The king gives du Barry a ring with his portrait that at least looks like an actual painting:
Du Barry packs and leaves Versailles, while her lady-in-waiting goes full 1970s Bicentennial with her dress:
And du Barry ends in a convent in basic black that’s too boring to screencap!
I hope Jeanne du Barry entertained you with its choices!
Ok, so this movie is a perfect example of a lightning bolt ripping my insides apart! I have been HOPING for a Madame du Barry biopic for years and years and years, and then we get….this! First thing’s first; Maïwenn is old enough today to be Du Barry during her last years heading towards the guillotine, not being presented to the King! And Jeanne is always described as the belle of gay Paris who seduced the male sex with her golden hair and half-closed blue eyes with simply her presence! Anyway, got that out of the way. Now, the costumes (dear God in heaven help me!) How the hell did a FRENCH production allow to use these costumes? It’s as if they are not in the least proud of their cosume history which is still considered the elite vogue of its time in the 18th century! I mean honestly, what else apart from deliberate ridicule could have been the goal in this monstrosity of textile? I said it before, and I’ll say it again…if only I had the financial resources to make MY version of the Jeanne du Barry biopic, I’d certainly make sweet Jeanne proud! And Kendra, rest assured you will be head management in the costume, bijoux and hair department!
I do costuming for a local high school with and extremely limited budget and costumes that only have to pass the 30 foot rule and be eye catching. We have to make heavy use of non historical and yep, polyester brocades and such. And I look at movies like this, that obviously have more than 6 people sewing them and such, and I just can’t figure out how they can do this badly. Are our pocket hoops off of Amazon or AliExpress? Of course. Sewn in stomachers? We have to. Machine embroidery? Absolutely. We have no choice. How does stuff for this wrong
Seriously! A smart high school production can pass the 30 ft rule w/historical costuming. Movies like this just don’t care & don’t try that hard, ugh.
That blue toilet roll cover dress almost made me lose my lunch!
Pretty sure my nana had a crocheted version of that in her bathroom when I was growing up.
I’m pretty sure Dua Lipa wore that first Chanel gown to the Met Gala last year. :)
The end of this movie should have ripped off Braveheart, where Jeanne on the scaffold sees the ghost of Louis XV walking through the crowd. Slow-mo shot of the guillotine blade falling. Then we go beyond Braveheart to see the lovers standing in their finery together in the middle of the ragged mob, the noise fades out, they go in for a kiss, cut to the clouds drifting across the sky. FIN
Actually it would have been super interesting to see du Barry’s life post-Versailles!
I feel like in some of these photos, a bum roll is needed just as much as the panniers that are missing in the more casual dresses (unless panniers were only for special occasions).
SOME kind of hip support! This era was much more about the sideways silhouette — and there were all kinds of sizes/shapes of panniers, so you could definitely wear them for casual wear.
Wait, she’s playing the CELLO? A court lady in the late 1700s? I don’t know a lot about Du Barry, so it’s very possible this is true and I just didn’t know (iirc I learned this as a kid, so perhaps my information is flawed). But I thought in that era dignified woman weren’t supposed to play the cello because it involved spreading their legs?
It seems to be rather that women went ahead and played the cello if they wanted to, while a few of the more priggish people of the day huffed and puffed about it.
Madame Henriette, one of Louis XV’s daughters (aka Madame Not-Appearing-in-This-Film), was painted several times playing either the bass viol or the cello.
Thanks! That makes sense. I appreciate the directions on where to look!
The lopsided wigs make it look like the actresses started out with normal-ish (if bad attempts at the hedgehog style) wigs and then got caught in a sudden wind storm on their way to set. Also how is it that the best costumes got reserved for MA when JDB is the main character? (Or did JDB get the wackadoo costumes because ‘main female character, must be different from the conventions of the era.’)
Leading character costume syndrome! See our post from yesterday :)
This was the funniest thing! My stomach is literally hurting from laughing so much at this article. Well done. Well done indeed, Kendra.
I almost wish that they would’ve gone full Reign and just made everyone look totally ridiculous from start to finish. The trailer review that you did last year didn’t leave me with high hopes and this post confirmed them!!
Yikes. Just… yikes.
Am I the only one who sees Johnny Depp in [all but one of] these pictures, and wonder if he’s thinking, “What the hell am I doing in this movie?”
“Wow I’m sure glad I still have a career despite being terrible to everyone around me. Oh wait, maybe there’s a reason I’m in this movie, and it’s that everything is terrible.”
Maïwenn was literally 12 when 29 year old Luc Besso groomed her and she had his baby at 16. She’s defended him and obviously doesn’t care about Depp’s crimes either. I’m glad this movie is a train wreck, hopefully someone with decency can make the film as it should be one day.
If I was Chanel, I would not be bragging about being involved in this movie lol
I LOLed literally 10 times reading this snark review. Clearly, the movie is a vanity project where Leading Character Costume Syndrome has infected virtually everyone. So sad. And so funny. Thank you, Kendra!
Oh noooooo. Well, at least I can’t stop laughing? The drunken turnip wigs?! Although I guess we should thank them for making this tragedy, it’s PERFECT Snark Week fodder!
I wrote a review about all the level of historical accuraccy of the movie on our blog. I think that the costumes (just look on the guy with the strange la-fleur-de-lyse pattern on the coat!) just fit into the frame. But I did like the actress of Marie Antoinette – very charming.
I made and wore view 3 of that pattern in 1976 for a school play. I still have it in a box (though no longer able to fit into it, given that I was 14 at the time).
Maybe it’s just me, but in the shot where she’s sitting at the dressing table looking at herself in the mirror, I swear she looks just like Amy Winehouse (RIP).