With her precocious husband Francois (Tom Sturridge) barely buried she is forced to fight for the right to run the vineyards that his will bequeathed her.
The neighbouring male growers including Moet (pronounced here with a hard t, interestingly) and even her stony-faced father-in-law (Ben Miles) are all circling like vultures. She refuses their offer to buy the Cliquot vines but she will be forced to sell when she inevitably fails. She inevitably doesn’t.
Thomas Napper’s film no more than nods at the art of champagne-making, preferring to focus on the woman making it in a man’s world. One wouldn’t want to belittle that struggle, but there was a chance her to do for champagne what films such as The Taste of Things and Babette’s Feast did for food. That is to say, delve into the mysterious alchemy of champagne-making, and reveal how it is that a mere sip of the stuff can transform the darkest of moods to joy.
Haley Bennett as Barbe Nicole Cliquot[Missing Credit]
Sturridge as the Mozart-like genius vine whisperer who sings to his plants and gets down and dirty in the earth in which they grow, delivers a tedious portrait of creative genius tinged with an unspecified psychosis. By contrast, Paul Rhys as the debonair libertarian wine seller Droite is far better company, not only for those in the film but for those watching it.
Following the likes of Chanel, Gucci and Ferrari, Cliquot is the latest luxury brand whose corporate story has been deemed big screen fare. Whatever permissions were granted in order to tell it have resulted in something that is more prosecco than champagne
