Chereau loosely adapts Alexander Dumas's novel about Margaret of Valois (Isabelle Adjani). Her mother, Catherine de Medici (Virna Lisi), marries her to Protestant Henri de Bourbon, ostensibly to avoid civil war with the Huguenots. Initially Margaret ignores Henri, keeping a stable of lovers - including, its implied, her brothers King Charles (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and the Duke of Anjou (Pascal Greggory) - while ignoring France's religious divide. That's until the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when the Catholics massacre Huguenots. Disgusted by her family's actions, Margaret allies with her husband and Huguenot refugee La Mole (Vincent Perez) to liberate Navarre from the Catholics.
Give Chereau and cowriter Daniele Thomson credit. Queen Margot has a dozen major characters yet the story never feels cluttered. Undoubtedly the film simplifies France's Catholic-Protestant divide, but the scarcely-concealed hatred works without detailed explication. The Medicis are incestuous cutthroats obsessed with power; the Huguenots slippery terrorists. No one's especially sympathetic, even (initially) Margaret, who prowls Paris's streets for someone to bed. With such amoral protagonists, a high body count's inevitable even without genocide.
Queen Margot benefits too from an excellent cast. Isabelle Adjani (Nosferatu the Vampyre) gives a striking performance. Evolving from selfish minx to principled protagonist, Adjani makes Margaret a compelling, sexy heroine. Daniel Auteuil makes the flaccid Henri sympathetic, while Vincent Perez injects necessary passion. Jean-Hugues Anglade and Pascal Greggory are hatefully decadent; Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist) and Asia Argento play minor roles. Virna Lisi makes a ferocious Catherine de Medici, sacrificing anyone to retain the throne.
Chereau's recreations are exquisite, with Philippe Rousselot's photography evoking period paintings. Yet Queen Margot comes perilously close to a geek show. Between sex and scheming, we're treated to myriad stabbings, beheadings and an agonizing arsenic poisoning. Chereau achieves apotheosis recreating the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, a long, grisly scene of mass murder and rapes, depicted with loving, near-Beatific reverence. Not since Visconti's The Damned has a film so shamelessly eroticized mass murder.
Admittedly, after grisly medieval spectacles like Game of Thrones and The Tudors, Queen Margot won't shock contemporary viewers. The violence is ultimately less tasteless than redundant: even fountainous throat slashings wear thin at 162 minutes' length. Still, the movie gets enough right to justify watching.