The Princess of Montpensier (15)

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Dir: Bertrand Tavernier With: Melanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson

BERTRAND Tavernier’s period drama, pictured below, is a huge, swirling, monumentally satisfying epic taking in war, peace and many a point in between. Set in 16th-century France as enmity between Catholics and Huguenots rages, the story is built around the titular princess, played by Melanie Thierry.

Young Marie, a firm believer in following one’s heart, finds she is to be traded in marriage to a suitor of her father’s choosing. From this simple arrangement a tangled web of feelings and allegiances is woven. Faced with a wise old count, an earnest prince, a romantic dreamer and a devilishly rakish duke, where is a girl to turn?

Tavernier, the 70-year-old director of Life and Nothing But, attacks the action scenes like a 20-year-old and the countryside landscapes are so stunning you could put a gilt frame around many a scene and hang them on the wall. If the dialogue is a little stagey, the undoubted movie star of the piece is Thierry, whose classical beauty gives the film an irresistible glow.

Belmont, Aberdeen, from tomorrow. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, from July 15. Glasgow Film Theatre, 5-8 August.

Trust (15)

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Dir: David Schwimmer With: Catherine Keener, Clive Owen

DAVID Schwimmer, the very same Ross from Friends and the director of the comedy Run Fatboy Run, chooses a tough subject for only his second feature film, but acquits himself well.

Annie, just turned 14, has made a new friend on the internet. She won’t tell her parents (played by Catherine Keener and Clive Owen) too much about “Charlie from California”, and that’s what Charlie’s hoping for. You can tell where the story is going from early on and to his credit, Schwimmer moves the drama on swiftly to the difficult business of what happens next.

A terrifying watch for any parent, and it comes close to overheated territory at times, but first class performances from the likes of Keener, Owen and Liana Liberato, playing the teenager whose trust is broken, make for an engrossing, intelligent drama. A real surprise from Schwimmer this, one that shows he’s serious about the directing game.

The Round Up (12A)

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Dir: Rose Bosch With: Jean Reno, Melanie Laurent

THIS gruelling, heartfelt account of one of the most shameful episodes in French history has done extremely respectable business at the home box office. It’s Paris, the summer of 1942, and the city’s Jewish community lives from rumour to rumour about what lies ahead.

Come July 16 the unimaginable becomes reality as families are rounded up and taken to the city’s Vel d’Iver. Writer-director Rose Bosch, once an investigative journalist, knows the importance of telling a story through a few well-rounded characters, and in Jean Reno’s doctor, Melanie Laurent’s nurse, Annette, and young Joseph (Hugo Leverdez), who provides a boy’s eye view of events, she has a strong trio. Pity about the almost pantomimic scenes of Hitler’s plotting, which prove an unnecessary distraction from an otherwise well told tale.