ONE NATION, ONE KING

OUT 25 JANUARY

Liberty, equality, monotony – Pierre Schoeller’s bafflingly inert French Revolution drama delivers a dry history lesson with the odd flourish to keep viewers awake. Taking us from the demolition of the Bastille to Louis XVI losing his head, it flits aimlessly between working and political classes, rarely pausing to give anybody any kind of meaningful development, nor context to key events. As half of an undercooked romance, Adèle Haenel comes closest to making us care. An underused Denis Lavant briefly stirs passions with a grandstanding speech, but you’ll be waiting for the guillotine to fall long before it does. Chris Schilling