Review of Chevalier, directed by Stephen Williams

Chevalier was a movie that was on my list ever since I saw the first trailer of it in a theater. Have no idea what the movie I was seeing at that time was, but that’s something to say if I remembered the Chevalier trailer over it.

I’m very much a history person, and I had no idea who Chevalier de Saint-Georges was, so I started doing my research immediately back when I first saw that. I was fascinated by the people surrounding him and the interconnected nature of higher-up France at the time, especially the ripple effect that was essentially created by the French Revolution, so when this movie was slated to release, I booked a ticket for when I knew audiences were going to be lighter.

So I took off from work in order to give myself a break, and on a Wednesday at noon I ventured out to my local AMC to see Chevalier. I was one of three in the movie theater, which was perfect since that gave me time to digest the movie without getting too distracted.

This was a movie I enjoyed at the end of the day, but it gave me a lot to think about when it comes to the nature of biopics and taking creative liberties.

Onwards with the review!

Chevalier de Saint-Georges rises through the ranks of Antoinette’s Paris, dealing with racism wherever he goes.

Chevalier opens with a great duel: set in his adulthood, the scene shows Mozart playing for a French audience. A man ventures out from the audience, and it causes great scandal when they see he’s Black. It is Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and he takes a violin from one of the men in the orchestra and then outplays Mozart in front of the audience.

He continuously grows angrier throughout the Chevalier’s performance, trying to up the tempo and techniques to throw him off, but the Chevalier wins at the end of the day. This sets the stage for the movie, as it flashes back to when he was dropped off by his white father at one of the most prestigious schools for music in the country.

Chevalier is already a musical prodigy when he enters the school, and, by the time he’s a young adult, he outfights another elite student in front of Marie Antoinette, and she appoints him the title of Chevalier.

This happens despite the racist speech that is given right before the fight, and, as the Chevalier continues to grow his reputation throughout the French aristocracy, attending their lavish parties and performing, it isn’t enough for him. He decides he wants to become the head of the Paris Opera after Marie Antoinette discloses to him that it is boring and needs to be updated with the times, but he has to get through another German composer first.

It is established they will have a duel of operas, and they must create an opera within a certain amount of time and present it to the committee. Chevalier already is smitten with a French general’s wife, who warns him from the get-go that if his wife is involved with the opera, he’s going to be pissed.

She defies his orders, Chevalier gets the backing of her cousin to finance the opera and everything needed for production, and they commence. At the same time, his father dies back home in Guadeloupe , leaving Chevalier nothing because he is an illegitimate child, and his mother is sent back to live with him in France.

This creates another cultural clash, one in which Chevalier now is grappling with his African heritage and the fact he was raised in a white French society.

There’s some stunning monologues throughout the movie about this, and conversations, but there is a gradual reconciliation towards the end of the movie when it comes to his split identity and what it means for him. Chevalier completes the opera, which is well-received and quite visually gorgeous, but then he is not selected by the committee because of his race, despite them giving it rave reviews. He loses the position as the head of the Paris Opera because of it, sending him in a spiral.

When he connects more to the lower class and Black people living in France, Chevalier increasingly begins to accept the revolutionary ideologies because Marie Antoinette casts him out of her favor because he is Black, and he effectively loses his title metaphorically in the process.

He could never truly blend into this racist society, leaving him falling apart. The woman in his opera, who he was having an affair with, ends up leaving him behind after a tense scene when her husband finds out what’s happening, then she gives birth to their child. Her husband kills it, sending Chevalier deeper into his anger.

The movie ends with him joining the cause and defying the queen by having a concert benefit dedicating all the funds to the revolution happening.

Lots of themes happening in this movie about identity and finding yourself, as corny as it sounds, because the Chevalier was denying who he truly was, thus leading to the impacts that snowballed at the end of the movie to become all the more devastating. He wants to be loved and accepted by the society he was thrust into, and, as he admits in the movie, he sought out the positions and prestige because of it.

Overall Thoughts

Chevalier might not be historically accurate—it synthesizes major events in his life and puts them in a chronological order that definitely does not happen in reality the way it did. It takes the term biopic loosely, because while the events are true, they’re definitely not presented in a way that’s truthful.

But it’s a visually stunning film throughout with its graphics and music, and I will say the acting is one of the highlights. Kelvin Harrison Jr. is marvelous as the protagonist, taking the camera and screen and commanding it with his prescience—although he might not be the right age for what’s happening in the actual Chevalier’s life. All in all, if this movie sounds interesting to you, you should definitely see it.

I think it was worth the time it took for me to get to the movies, watch it, and drive home. I’m very interested in his story, even if the movie doesn’t technically do it justice.

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