Jun 15th  
Chevalier** (12A)  
(Curzon Colchester)   

(US/Czech 2022)
Searchlight/TSG/Element Pictures. 108m.

The largely unfictionalised history of an illegitimate black son of a French aristocrat, whose gift for music wins him favour with Marie Antoinette who accords him Chevalier status, until racial prejudice and the French Revolution turns fate the other way.
The film opens with a likely apocryphal encounter where Mozart is upstaged by Joseph Bologne, although this works very much in the spirit of an unheralded musical pioneer of the 18th century (suppressed later by Napoleon), with good period detail without too much concession to recent trends, with the prejudices and the pleasures of the time reasonably accurate.

Written by: Stefani Robinson.
Producers: Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Stefani Robinson, Dianne McGunigle.
Director: Stephen Williams.
Starring: Kelvin Harrison, Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton (as Marie Antoinette), Ronke Adekoluejo, Minnie Driver, Martin Csokas, Jim High, Alex Fitzalan, Henry Lloyd-Hughes (as Gluck), Sian Clifford, Joseph Prowen (as Mozart).
Photography: Jess Hall.
Music: Kris Bowers.