Die Witwe Clicquot

Working in the industry, I am aware of the place that Madame Clicquot holds in the champagne world to this day. I had read this book and learned some very interesting things about what she did and how she did it. More so, some of her 19th century innovations that are still today's standards. Maybe her most important innovation, the riddling of the bottles during the bottle fermentation, is bearly noted and definitely not named.

What came across in the movie was almost none of that. This ended up somewhat of a confusing love story set against the vineyards of the Champagne region of France. Even her love story with M. Clicquot is ignored, even to the fact and reasons for their marriage taking place in the wine caves under Reims.

This could have been a great story highlighting a woman who really beat the odds when everything was working against her. I had hoped that this might be a good movie for my co-workers to view to learn more about a product we sell quite often. Having watched it, I cannot do that in good conscience, however!

Haley Bennett turns in a reasonable effort here as the eponymous lady who has to keep control of her late husband's vineyards at a time in history when Napoleon's wars were raging throughout Europe - and France wasn't doing so well, by this point - and his laws prohibited women from managing so much as a dinner party. The death of François (Tom Sturridge) has left her a property that her former father-in-law Philippe (Ben Miles) is keen to sell to the neighbouring Mr. Moet but with a bit of help from accountant "Edouard" (Anson Boon) and roguish distributor "Droite" (Paul Rhys) she is determined to develop her own brand of Champagne and, probably more precariously, get the stuff to the well-heeled markets readily prepared to pay through the nose for wine without the "frog-eyed bubbles". The framework is here for a good story, depicting the struggles of a woman - and a father - coming to terms with an untimely death amidst a wartime environment. We do learn a little, via flashback, that her marriage was loving but that her husband became mentally ill putting huge stress on this woman and on their young daughter but the dramatisation is rather let down by a typically uninspiring performance from Sturridge and some quite weak storytelling. Certainly, the film looks great and it illustrates well the difficulties in getting the vintage grown in the first place before bottling these mobile explosive devices and taking them, by wagon, to market and it's quite richly scored by Bryce Dessner, but director Thomas Napper has over-relied on the aesthetics of the film and put too little into the characterisations of a woman who clearly knew her own mind and was not going to let her beloved husband's legacy disappear - even at the risk of bankruptcy. It's worth a watch, but a cinema screening doesn't really add much value to this undercooked period drama that just lacked, well, fizz.

A very good film exploring the start of Veuve Cliquet although I felt it could have explored a lot more about how her champagne mixing made the drink such a success rather than focussing on her obviously manic husband. 90 minutes was about 30 minutes too short for such an interesting subject played superbly by. Haley Bennett. The cast was excellent and some compelling characters, which again cloud have been explored more deeply, e.g. What was the past of the distributor, what was the relationship with the father and workers? Overall one of the better films I have seen in 2024 and highly recommend.

"Widow Clicquot" is an art film with historical chops helping those of us who love champagne and those who study Napolean. "Widow" is important in that title because in the early 19th century Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot (Haley Bennett) challenged the 1804 Napoleonic code that didn't allow women to be business owners unless she was a widow.

Throughout the story, flashbacks allow us to see how she became widowed and how she grew into a winemaker helping to establish forever the méthode champenoise. The contemporary scenes allow reflections on the past and, most importantly, the role of women in the early 19th century. Although the early parts where she is struggling and learning the business of producing champagne is visually dark, Bennett infuses Barbe with enough potential energy to light up the screen.

More exciting than seeing her romances with men and wine is the process of refining her test samples into what has been known as "Comet Champagne" after the inspiration of a comet in her sky at that time. Her formula now is identified as Clicquot, a gold standard for fine champagne.

It's possible some would like to discount the feminist angle of this rich biography, but at their peril. The seeds of reasonable progress are sown here because of her excellence in developing the winery and thereby one of the world's greatest wines.

The dramatic tale, from reality, is as powerful as any romantic drama today. Too bad some will miss it out of a fear of being preached to about women's place. It is all about human ingenuity and ambition, male or female.

Relatively dry period drama "Widow Clicquot" is the true story of how in the late 16th century the titular Barbe Nicole Clicquot (rising star Haley Bennett - excellent) inherited the Clicquot vineyards of Champagne from crazy genius husband Tom Sturridge, and with steely determination (and the support of Sam Riley) fought off largely chauvinistic pressure from those around her (including Ben Miles & Paul Rhys) AND oppressive Napoleonic laws, to forge a legacy living on today through Veuve Clicquot. Thomas Napper directs solidly, and Erin Dignam's screenplay (cut with flashbacks) is interesting, tho perhaps only REALLY interesting to wine enthusiasts.