The strangest part of Ridley Scott’s On Rotten Tomatoes, Napoleon has a critics’ score of 58% and an audience score of 59%, indicating that critics and audiences alike were split down the middle. It’s rife with historical inaccuracies, presenting a pretty simplistic portrait of one of history’s most complex figures, but the acting is brilliant, particularly by Vanessa Kirby.
Not everything about Napoleon works, but its comic relief was one of the most refreshing parts. It doesn’t quite work as a straightforward historical epic, but it works great as a comedy. From Napoleon’s childish outbursts (“You think you’re so great just because you have boats!!”) to his relationship with Joséphine being portrayed as a bickering sitcom marriage, Napoleon is jam-packed with quirky humor. David Scarpa is the only credited screenwriter on Napoleon, but Scott recently revealed that someone else rewrote the script — and suddenly, all that comic relief makes a lot of sense.
It Makes A Lot Of Sense That Ridley Scott's Napoleon Was Rewritten By Paul Thomas Anderson
Napoleon Has Anderson's Comedic Sensibility All Over It
A few months ago, rumors began to circulate that There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson had worked on the screenplay for Napoleon. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Scott revealed those rumors were true. While he was working on Licorice Pizza, Anderson (who Scott calls “Tommy”) came aboard Napoleon to advise Scott on the script rewrites. Scott said that during the rewrites, he and Anderson were “screaming with laughter,” seemingly confirming that Anderson mostly contributed to the film’s humor.
Suddenly, all the bizarre comic relief in Napoleon makes sense, because it’s exactly the style of idiosyncratic humor seen in movies like Boogie Nights and The Master.
Suddenly, all the bizarre comic relief in Napoleon makes sense, because it’s exactly the style of idiosyncratic humor seen in movies like Boogie Nights and The Master. Napoleon’s immature outbursts are similar to Lancaster Dodd’s outbursts at dissenters or Jack Horner’s outburst at the frat boy doing a scene with Rollergirl. The darkly hilarious toxicity of his marriage is similar to the mutually toxic romance of Phantom Thread. The slapstick of Napoleon falling down the stairs is similar to the slapstick of Eli Sunday slipping in a muddy puddle. Napoleon has Anderson’s comedic sensibility all over it.
Offbeat Humor Is One Of The Best Parts Of Napoleon
Napoleon Should've Leaned Into The Comedy More (Like The Death Of Stalin)
Napoleon’s offbeat humor is one of the best parts of the film. It doesn’t work so well as a character study, because it focuses too much on the surface-level bullet points of Napoleon’s reign without ever really digging into why he was the way he was. But it works really well as an absurdist satire of a petty tyrant who dominated the world to serve his own fragile ego. If Napoleon had leaned into that more, like The Death of Stalin, it would’ve been a better movie.
Source: The New York Times
Napoleon
- Release Date
- November 22, 2023
- Runtime
- 158 Minutes
- Director
- Ridley Scott
Cast
Vanessa Kirby
WHERE TO WATCH
From director Ridley Scott and writer David Scarpa comes Napoleon, a dramatic historical-epic film that follows the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte as he embarks on a lengthy French campaign of conquest. The film also focuses on his relationship with Josephine, his Empress and the love of his life, a relationship that was equal parts romantically intense and self-destructive.
- Writers
- David Scarpa
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