A ROYAL AFFAIR

A scene from Nikolaj Arcel’s A ROYAL AFFAIR

King Christian VII of Denmark would rather be an actor than a monarch. Statutes are given short shrift but whole screeds of Shakespeare are committed to memory- although something is rotten in the state of Denmark does not rank; indeed it rankles. Could it have something to do with his step-mother and her overweening aspirations for his step brother?!

In 1766, the stage managed marriage to Caroline Mathilde, sister of George III of England to this cuckoo king takes place, is comically consummated, brings forth issue of a son, and alienates the couple.

On a year-long tour of Europe without his queen and heir, the juvenile liege befriends a German doctor, Struensee, and after bonding over Lear,- “we two alone will sing like birds in a cage” – and bestows on him the garland of royal physician.

Returning to court, the manic monarch ignores his queen. Caroline has grown accustomed to a quiet existence in oppressed Copenhagen but finds an unexpected ally within the kingdom with the comely quack.

The attraction between the two is initially one of shared ideals and philosophy, but it soon turns into a passionate and clandestine affair.

Committed to the ideals of the Enlightenment that are banned in Denmark, Struensee convinces the King to assert his previously untapped power to remove the conservative political council and implement drastic changes to Danish society.

Egad! This bloke wants to put more money into education and health at the cost of defence and the landed gentry!

As the Court plot their return to power and the downfall of the Queen and Struensee, the consequences of their affair are made clear and a cuckolded king is duped into driving Denmark back into the dark ages.

Winner of the Best Actor at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Mads Mikkelsen is magnificent and marvelous as the well meaning medico whose good deeds are brought down by his dalliance with the kid king’s queen.

His co-star, Mikkel Boe Folsgaard took out the best actor at the Berlin Film Festival for his marvelous and magnificent portrayal of the mad monarch, King Christian VII.

As Queen Caroline, Alicia Vikander is transcendent with an incandescent quality that prompts recollection of another Swedish screen star, Greta Garbo.

Trine Dyrholm is sensational, as usual, as the dowager Queen conspiring against the crown, and David Dencik is oozily oily as the unctuous cleric and hypocrite whose conniving crucifies any scrap of scruples the Christian church may aspire to.

Director Nikolaj Arcel, best known to Australian audiences for co-scripting the original THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO, blows the dust from history with a sure dramatic drive, steering the screenplay (voted best script at Berlin) by his DRAGON TATOO co-writer, Rasmus Heisterberg, and turns it into a sumptuous, subterfugal cinema experience. Good looking, so refined, if you thought history was dull, wait till you take a look at this zinger.

A ROYAL AFFAIR will be screening at the Sydney Film Festival this Friday before its general release on June 21.

© Richard Cotter
10th June, 2012

Tags: Sydney Movie Reviews- A ROYAL AFFAIR, Denmark Royal Family, Sydney Film Festival, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter