The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B-
Legendary director Ridley Scott’s recent work has been a bit hit or miss and Napoleon somehow falls into both categories. I was eagerly awaiting this film based on the trailers and Scott’s pedigree, but it ultimately doesn’t deliver on what I want from a biopic about one of the greatest, and most destructive, world leaders of all time. However, it’s also hard to fault what is included here from a filmmaking perspective as Napoleon is one of the best films of the year from a technical perspective. It’s beautifully designed, masterfully directed and well performed, but ultimately doesn’t deliver on the promises of its subject matter. The result is possibly the most confounding and conflicted viewing experience of 2023.
The film chronicles Napoleon’s rise from a young army office to the ruler of France following the French Revolution in the 1790s. I’m not going to plot details because, quite frankly, the film itself doesn’t go much into plot details. The core problem with Napoleon is that the titular figure is one of the most significant people in world history and it is simply impossible to cover the man’s life in the running time of a feature film. One must choose what to focus on and what to gloss over, but the viewer is inevitably left with the feeling that a lot is missing. And that feeling would be correct. The original cut of Napoleon was about 4 hours long, which was cut down to about 2 and a ½ hours for the theatrical release and it’s very obvious that this is a truncated edition of a longer work.
In deciding what to cut and what to keep, Ridley Scott decided to focus on Napoleon’s relationship with his wife, Josephine. This is an odd choice because it causes the film to breeze through some minor historical points like, I don’t know, the frigging Napoleonic Wars. From a narrative perspective, it would be difficult to cover the Napoleonic Wars in a movie because of the complexity of the series of events, the multitude of battles, the convoluted politics and the shifting military alliances. It is a massive topic to tackle.
However, the film’s version of events is so brief and undeveloped that it seems like an afterthought. In one scene, Napoleon will sign a treaty with Russia, the next scene is a monologue about how the Russians turned on him, the next scene is Napoleon invading Russia and then he is on trial and exiled. That literally only accounts for about 15 minutes of screen time. One battle that is shown in the film directly led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. That isn’t exactly a minor historical point, but it isn’t even mentioned. In fact, the Holy Roman Empire itself isn’t mentioned. The entire film is like this, skipping and minimizing massively important events to return to a narrative about Napoleon’s relationship issues.
While I think that the focus on the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine is an odd choice, the presentation is even odder. Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby give performances that seem to be emotionally disinterred by design and their chemistry is also seemingly nonexistent on purpose. I was the only person laughing in my theater during the sex scenes, but I can’t help but think that the humor is intentional. Kirby will be bent over a table and getting railed from behind, but she is so disinterested that its hilarious. If you digitally removed Phoenix from the scene, you would think that she was leaning over the table and casually working on a jigsaw puzzle to kill time (although I give people credit for having sex at all during this time period considering that every outfit contained more buttons than a Burlington Coat Factory). The dynamic is just bizarre and it’s difficult to get invested in, or even understand, their relationship when it rarely seems liked they want to be there. With the pedigree of this director and these actors, this must all be intentional. I just don’t understand what they are going for.
However, the film is a marvel when it does occasionally focus on the battlefield. The best segment, which is the focus of the trailers, is a massive battle where Napoleon tricks opposing forces to retreat over ice and it is one of the most epic large-scale battles on the big screen since Scott’s own Gladiator. These sequences are true spectacles and effectively convey Napoleon’s tactical acumen and chess-like approach to warfare, it’s just a shame that they are few and far between.
Napoleon is a challenge to review because the good stuff is so good, but I was constantly aware that an entire film’s worth of material was cut out of the movie. My grade likely seems generous based on the comments that I’ve made, but goddamn is this movie good when it focuses on the more interesting material. I’m not usually one for director’s cuts (if it’s the better version, then it should have been the one released to theaters), but I would give it a shot in this case. I’m hoping it will focus less on Napoleon’s lame sex life and a bit more on those wars that killed millions and reshaped Europe. Little details like that.
Image by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_(2023_film)#/media/File:Napoleon_Film_poster.jpg
