Chevalier is a biopic of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whom you’ve probably never heard of, as I hadn’t. He was an 18th-century French-African virtuoso violinist and composer who wowed everyone in his day – in 1779, John Adams, then the American ambassador to France, called him ‘the most accomplished Man in Europe’ – but was erased from history and is only lately being rediscovered. Fascinating, you would think, and he was fascinating. Even a cursory look at his Wikipedia entry is thrilling. But this is not a fascinating or thrilling film. It is handsomely mounted yet strangely bland and strikes too many false notes. I was going to say it’s as if Disney had made it but then remembered: this is Disney.

Directed by Stephen Williams and written by Stefani Robinson, the film opens with a musical duel between Bologne (Kevin Harrison Jr) and a certain Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Joseph Prowen). Mozart is performing in concert and Bologne mounts the stage and challenges him to a violin-off. The audience is in raptures as cocky Mozart is upstaged. That’s the first false note right there: it didn’t feel true and it isn’t true. There’s no evidence that Mozart and Bologne even met. Creative liberties are all very well but it’s imperative that they feel as if they could be true. Amadeus was highly fictionalised, but it had such smarts you always believed it. I still believe it. If Mozart had really been humbled, I’d have wished Salieri could have been there to witness it. It would have cheered him up no end.

The story then moves to Joseph’s childhood. He was born in Guadeloupe, the son of a wealthy, plantation-owning Frenchman and an African slave. At seven years old, he was dispatched to France for his education, attending a swanky school where the headmaster is initially reluctant to enrol ‘a negro bastard’. Finally accepted on the basis of his violin playing, he must then endure name-calling from the other pupils, as well as beatings. Yet he emerges a champion fencer, impressing Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton), who appoints him a ‘chevalier’, the French equivalent of a knighthood.

This provides his entry into high society, yet his ambition to run the Paris Opéra is complicated not just by the violent racism of the time but also by an influential singer (played by Minnie Driver), whose advances he has rebuffed, and his affair with a woman (Samara Weaving) who is married to a powerful Marquis.

The film is far more interested in his love life than it is in the music, but what is his music exactly? I don’t think I can tell you. Some of the music included is his, and some isn’t, but which is which? Shouldn’t it be all his? To give us a proper appreciation? Isn’t that the point?

Harrison is a fine actor but he isn’t given enough material to produce a complex performance. The direction and script are both uninspired, while the character is essentially underwritten and shows very little emotion, hence the blandness. We know that Bologne is competitive – ‘be excellent,’ were his father’s last words to him – but here he’s mostly battered about by the whims of others, leaving Harrison to solely react. Meanwhile, I would also say that if the aim is to assert the presence of black artists in history, which is a valuable enterprise, why frame it via the stories of two white women?

The film is certainly handsome to look at, even if I did notice a modern handrail in one Paris scene. But the subject never feels fully explored. For example, the fact that Bologne was, extraordinarily, both musician and soldier – like James Blunt! – and was a colonel who led France’s first black regiment is mentioned only in the end titles. Wikipedia, in conclusion, may be the better bet.