In Eighteenth Century Denmark a new Queen (Alicia Vikander)
arrives from her native England
to meet her new King, Christian VII (Mikkel Følsgaard) for the first time. The
King instantly fails to live up to his reputation and the Queen is shunned by
him and infuriated by his temperament and apparent madness. What’s worse is
that Denmark’s outdated
censorship bans many of her favourite Enlightenment era books which are
returned to England.
In a small Danish colony in Germany,
two ex Court favourites persuade a local Doctor to apply to be the King’s
physician in the hope that they will once again gain favour with the Court. The
Doctor (Mads Mikkelsen) is an instant hit with the King but with few others.
The Queen slowly learns of their like-mindedness and they begin a slow seizure
of power from the lame duck Monarch as well as embarking on a risky sexual
affair.
It always annoys me when I miss a critically successful
overseas film at the cinema but I simply couldn’t find anywhere showing A Royal Affair on its theatrical
release. The film has since been Oscar Nominated and just the other day won a
couple of converted Kermode Awards so I was thrilled when my online DVD rental
service sent me the film. A Royal Affair
is pretty much all I was expecting of it. It’s a lavish and pretty costume
drama with a political heart and save for a run time I would happily shorten, I
really enjoyed it.
