A look at Widow Clicquot
After the death of Barbe Nicole Ponsardin’s husband, talented winemaker Francois Clicquot, the consensus opinion among blokes in the know is that she should give up the business and live a comfortable life with her daughter on the proceeds.
Barbe (Haley Bennett) is keen to run the vineyard and keep experimenting, just as her husband had done. This is despite the fact that women don’t know how to run businesses and it might even be illegal for them to do so.
She believes in a collaborative approach to business – again wrong – and pushes on despite setbacks to create fine Champagne. One of Barbe’s radical ideas she calls “the wheel” – bosses and workers sitting in a circle and listening to ideas – in a conversation with her business manager Droite (Paul Rhys) she says: “So hierarchy comforts you. And I must give up my idea of the wheel because it makes men uncomfortable. Because it doesn’t project power?”
Filmed in Reims, Chablis and Burgundy, Widow Clicquot looks great and contains some thoroughly modern lessons despite being set when Napoleon was the tyrant to worry about. Oh and you’ll see plenty of Francois (Tom Sturridge) through frequent flashbacks. And you may, like me, be thinking where else you’ve seen Ben Miles, who plays Philippe Clicquot.
Barbe’s willingness to say no comes to the fore as she encounters one final hurdle in the film’s abrupt but effective conclusion.
You may feel the need for a glass of Champagne after viewing this movie and that’s always recommended.
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