Showing @ Vue Leicester Sq. Tue 19, 12:00
Adapted from the novel by seventeenth century writer Madame de Lafayette, Bertrand Tavernier’s latest is a safe, old-fashioned, conservative historical drama that emphasizes the personal over the political at the cost of any valuable insights. Noblewoman Marie (Mélanie Thierry) is passionately in love with her cousin Henri de Guise (Gaspard Ulliel), but is forced in the interests of her father to marry Philippe de Montpensier (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), which she reluctantly concedes, but you can guess where this all leads.
The final product feels decidedly by-numbers, hampered mainly by a tired storyline and generic direction. There’s some rich, if over-familiar, character to engage with, but the young leads struggle to convince, lacking any real passion or conviction; one can imagine what a true thesp like Roman Duris would do with the role of Henri, but what we have instead feels almost as inconsequential as a teen drama. On the plus side, there’s some decent action scenes and the period detail is evocative, but with the trite drama underlying them it’s only die-hard historical drama fans that will sit still for this one.