Amidst the blockbuster season of robots, explosions, superheros and aliens, we can all use a pleasant period piece drama to cleanse the palate. Benoit Jacquot is giving us just that with Farewell, My Queen, the movie that opened the Berlin Film Festival to solid reviews and arriving in theaters in the heat of July.

Inglourious Basterds‘ Diane Kruger takes the lead as queen Marie Antoinette while Ghotocol‘s Lea Seydoux is by her side. The production design seems to be top-notch and the story passionately captured, which is half the battle in these sometimes droll entries into the genre. Check out the trailer and poster below via Apple.

Synopsis:

FAREWELL, MY QUEEN marks the return of acclaimed director Benoit Jacquot (A Single Girl, Seventh Heaven, Sade, Deep in the Woods,) and brilliantly captures the passions, debauchery, occasional glimpses of nobility and ultimately the chaos that engulfed the court of Marie Antoinette in the final days before the full-scale outbreak of the Revolution. Based on the best-selling novel by Chantal Thomas, the film stars Lea Seydoux as one of Marie’s ladies-in-waiting, seemingly an innocent but quietly working her way into her mistress’s special favors, until history tosses her fate onto a decidedly different path. With the action moving effortlessly from the gilded drawing rooms of the nobles to the back quarters of those who serve them, this is a period film at once accurate and sumptuous in its visual details and modern in its emotions. Diane Kruger’s gives her best performance to date as the ill-fated Queen and Virginie Ledoyen is the Queen’s special friend Gabrielle de Polignac.

Farewell, My Queen hits theaters July 13th, 2012.