Cannes 2023: Johnny Depp Tears Up As His Comeback Film Jeanne Du Barry Gets 7-minute Standing Ovation

he 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival opened with a French work, Jeanne Du Barry, with Johnny Depp playing King Louis XV. This is a sort of comeback for the actor after his messy legal cases with his former wife, Amber Heard, and a newspaper. Helmed by Maiwenn – who co-wrote the screenplay and portrays the title character – the movie played out of competition.

Jeanne is the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a cook, and she educates herself in sophistry and even a good education, thanks to the big aristocrats whom her single mother worked for. When the mother and daughter move to Paris, Jeanne meets King Louis, and it is lust at first sight.

Maiwenn’s fascination for Jeanne du Barry began after she watched Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film, Marie Antoinette. She said at the start of the movie. “When I saw Asia Argento as Madame du Barry, I immediately felt a complicity with her,” she says. “The more I read about her, the more it confirmed this and it hasn’t stopped. I saw facets of my own personality in Jeanne du Barry,” she adds. “I believe in freedom — I think it is what is most sexy, most seductive, most charismatic. And I’ve always loved marginal people.”