Celebrated filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier’s latest is a sweeping drama of love and conflict set in the 16th century during France’s Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants. In a calculated strategic move by her father, Marie de Mézières, who has sworn young love to the dashing duc de Guise, is given in marriage to the prince of Montpensier, who rides off into battle soon after the wedding. The duc d’Anjou, heir to the throne, and the comte de Chabannes, a Prostestant deserter who is left to tutor Marie while her husband is away, are also drawn into the orbit of Marie’s magnetic beauty and intelligence, complicating both her and their own struggles with wealth, duty, stature and power. With realistically bloody battle scenes, a handsome cast of experienced pros and newcomers and a keen understanding of the intermingling of personal and political, Tavernier’s take on the costume romance feels at once true to its time and bracingly original.


Written by Jean Cosmos, François-Olivier Rousseau, Bertrand Tavernier. Photographed by Bruno de Keyzer. With Mélanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Gaspard Ulliel (139 min, IFC Films).