Diane Kurys’s gaudy period romance is a kind of he said/she said of 19th-century literary affairs. The title comes from the roman à clef that doomed romantic poet Alfred de Musset (Benoît Magimel), the Kurt Cobain of the 19th century, wrote about his affair with the Baroness Dudevant (Juliette Binoche), who was better known as the iconoclastic, gender-bending, wildly popular novelist George Sand. The point of view, however, is all Sand’s; Musset comes off as a dissipated libertine incapable of fidelity who tries to suck the life out of his talented mistress.

For her part, Binoche’s Sand, despite the men’s clothes, the cigars, and the light promiscuity, seems to be a nurturer and homemaker at heart. Overwrought and lovely to look at, providing little sense of what genius and artistic creation might be like, Les enfants du siècle does boast some scandalous moments (Musset does a number on his brother with a fork) plus some clever dialogue — and some that’s real dumb, too. It’s Merchant Ivory with squalor, ecstasy, and bad manners. In French with English subtitles. (135 minutes)