‘Widow Clicquot’ Review: Haley Bennett Plays a Champagne Trailblazer In a Biopic More Still Than Sparkling
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic Amid the glut of corporate biopics we’ve had on our screens of late — “Air,” “BlackBerry,” “Flamin’ Hot” and so on — one for leading French champagne house Veuve Clicquot is more appealing than most.
Champagne itself is sexier than a running shoe or a smartphone, for one thing, while the sinuous vineyards of 19th-century Reims are a more seductive setting for a brand-building story than a squat office block in Beaverton. “Widow Clicquot” certainly makes a virtue of its milieu and rolling landscape, richly shot throughout in dusky earth tones, and more substantively, of the rather romantic lore surrounding the widow in question.
Aged just 27 when her husband died, leaving her his ailing winery, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot resisted buyout offers from male competitors, instead transforming it into a thriving international champagne business — the first of its kind to be run by a woman.
All that, and she allegedly invented rosé champagne, in which case we collectively owe Madame Clicquot a solid, or at least a solid biopic. “Widow Clicquot” is mostly that, relating her tale in a respectful albeit streamlined manner, and benefiting from a performance of characteristically quiet intelligence by Haley Bennett (who also produces, with husband Joe Wright) in the title role.
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