Widow Clicquot

Veuve is French for widow, and the word has sat on one of the best known champagne labels in the world for more than two centuries. 'Widow Clicquot' tells the story of the woman behind it: Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, who lost her husband at 27 and dug her heels in to keep running his vineyards at a time when a Frenchwoman could barely hold a business in her own name. Thomas Napper directs and Haley Bennett plays the widow.

Champagne, 1805. François Clicquot (Tom Sturridge) dies suddenly, leaving Barbe-Nicole alone with a young daughter. Her husband's father, Philippe (Ben Miles), doesn't think she can turn round an estate that only loses money, and the neighbours, the Moëts among them, already have their eye on the land. She won't sell. Instead she picks up the experiments her husband left unfinished, though the vineyard hands don't trust her methods.

Making the wine is only half of it. To sell it she turns to Louis Bohne (Sam Riley), a shrewd merchant who's happy to slip past Napoleon's trade embargoes. All the while the film keeps cutting back to the marriage, to the love between Barbe-Nicole and François and to the moods of a gifted man who lived for his vines.

Erin Dignam and Christopher Monger adapted Tilar J. Mazzeo's book, which producer Christina Weiss Lurie had held the rights to for eight years before she met Bennett. Bennett ended up producing too, with her partner Joe Wright, who had directed her in 'Cyrano'. It was shot in France in autumn 2022, mostly around Chablis, and Napper, whose debut 'Jawbone' earned him a BAFTA nomination, remembers the cast and crew permanently caked in mud. Natasha O'Keeffe, Anson Boon and Leo Suter round out the cast, Caroline Champetier ('Holy Motors') shot it and Bryce Dessner of The National wrote the score.

It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023 but didn't reach American cinemas until July 2024, and it opened in the UK on 23 August that year. Critics were broadly kind and Bennett's performance won most of them over, though several wished the film had taken more risks instead of sticking so closely to the period biopic formula.

• Biography
• Drama