Chevalier

Entertaining and wise, this film flies in the face of stuffy all-white period drama.

This was a compelling period of French history and the narrative composed for the film makes the most of the volatile backdrop.

Both Robinson and Williams share a particular interest in this unfairly neglected episode in black history, but they never allow polemics to overwhelm the narrative.

There are hints of greatness in Chevalier, but it’s worthier of polite applause than a standing ovation.

Entertainingly soapy fare with an unabashedly brash and anachronistic approach to its 18th-century tale.

Though the experienced TV director Stephen Williams dutifully follows Bologne through a clash with Antoinette and the Paris Opera, and eventually into the French Revolution, the project fails to earn the required gravitas.

Feels much like the “tragic mulatto” tale of old, a stereotypical rendering of a biracial Black who struggles to fit in as a minority and—due to prevailing prejudices—cannot achieve social status among Whites either.

A glorified soap opera atrociously written, Chevalier is at its best when generating unintended laughs.

...a fairly generic biopic that never quite becomes as compelling or spellbinding as its subject matter might’ve indicated...

It is more accomplished than Bernard Rose’s Immortal Beloved (1994), but at the same time no one should expect anything approaching Miloš Forman’s Amadeus (1984).