La Reine Margot

Sumptuous historical drama starring Isabelle Adjani and Daniel Auteuil; a thunderous yarn full of dastardly plots, familial hatred and perverse desire

This sumptuous historical drama centres on the intrigues leading up to the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. Catholic Margot, an heiress to the throne during the reign of King Charles IX, finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage amidst a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. She hopes to escape with her Protestant lover but is imprisoned by her powerful and ruthless family.

Patrice Chéreau's film works best as a thunderously good yarn, full of dastardly plots, familial hatred, perverse desire, ill-starred romance and lashings of gore. While this is not an old-style glamorisation of sixteenth-century life, it is full-bloodedly romantic, with heaving emotions, cunning machinations and misplaced loyalties. It's also spectacular to look at, enhanced by Chéreau's imaginative use of music, and performed with considerable brio by the starry cast, including Daniel Auteuil and Isabelle Adjani as the titular monarch.