2023 Cannes Film Festival: Maïwenn’s Jeanne du Barry is the Fest Opener – Will it Slip into Competition?

Despite being selected for the competition (technically) on three occasions with 2011’s Polisse, 2015’s My King and 2020’s Cannes Label selected DNA, we didn’t see Maïwenn‘s Jeanne du Barry as a competition film (see our Out of Comp predix). Today Variety broke the news with the festival making it official: Johnny Depp now makes it a trio of Hollywood actors in Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon) who’ll be the posterboys for the ’23 edition. Jeanne du Barry will be presented on the Croisette and receive a French domestic release within that 24-hour window and in the same token will be a splash for the Wild Bunch International folks to break in their new Goodfellas branding. The big question now: will the film slip into the competition for the Palme d’Or? We highly doubt it.

Maïwenn herself plays the eponymous main character alongside with Johnny Depp, Benjamin Lavernhe, Melvil Poupaud, Pierre Richard, Pascal Greggory and India Hair. Recounting the life, rise and fall of the king Louis XV‘s favourite, the film will be released in French cinemas simultaneously. Jeanne Vaubernier, a young working-class woman hungry for culture and pleasure, uses her intelligence and allure to climb the rungs of the social ladder one by one. She becomes the favourite of King Louis XV who, unaware of her status as courtesan, regains through her his appetite for life. They fall madly in love. Against all propriety and etiquette, Jeanne moves to Versailles, where her arrival scandalizes the court…