I can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of this lush 1999 period picture, which chronicles the tempestuous affair between George Sand and Alfred de Musset, and it certainly doesn’t provide a sense of what either was like as a writer or even as a thinker. But as a literary bodice ripper this is better than average, partly because of its glimpses of early-19th-century bohemianism in France and Italy but mostly because Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel manage to keep the story hot and unpredictable. As the opening title acknowledges, the age difference between Sand and Musset was only six years, yet curiously the film depicts their relationship as if she were twice his age. Director Diane Kurys collaborated with Murray Head and Francoise Olivier Rousseau on the script; this originally ran 135 minutes but has been trimmed down to two hours for American audienceswhich perhaps accounts for the confusing and cryptic allusion to Sand’s ten-year relationship with Chopin. In French with subtitles. (JR)