Royal Affair

"A Royal Affair" is a Danish/Swedish/Czech production about the reign of 18th century King Christian VII of Denmark, his Welsh wife and a German physician whose progressive ideas shake Denmark's conservative ruling class to its foundations. As best I can discern the film tries to keep true to actual history with some embellishments added concerning the role of the Queen in the political machinations along with some reasonable speculation about a possible menage a trois. The screenplay by Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg does a nice job of capturing the unusual atmosphere of life at a court governed by a mentally unstable monarch who's little more than a nuisance puppet of the nobility and the church. In the middle of all that is the young English Queen trapped in a loveless marriage. She is also disturbed by the unwillingness of her adopted country to accept the ideas of the Enlightenment then circulating around Europe. Under the direction of Nikolaj Arcel "A Royal Affair" is an effective recreation of a bygone age yet one in which we can see our contemporary quagmire between those who advocate change and those condemning it. Mikkel Folsgaard is excellent as the King. He never descends to caricature and is both powerful and pitiable. Mads Mikkelsen is compelling as Dr. Johann Struensee a noble but flawed man given a rare opportunity to improve the lot of the lower classes who are suspicious of him as a foreigner usurping the state. Alicia Vikander is Caroline Mathilde a Welsh princess sent to Denmark in an arranged marriage of noble households with no idea of what's in store for her. This is very good intelligent costume drama that should please fans of the genre. Well worth seeing.

I had the great fortune to be invited to attend the World Premiere at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this evening of this wonderful film -and opportunities like that don't come often.

A Royal Affair is Oscar level material in many respects. The screenplay, directing and photography are all superb but the performance of Mikkel Følsgaard as Christian VII of Denmark was perfection. It is so difficult to act a madman acting as if he were sane and I cannot believe any actor taking an Oscar this year could have put up a better performance. Mikkel got the loudest cheer from the audience and he thoroughly deserved it.

The plot revolves around the machinations of power behind the throne of a simpleton monarch. Christian may be King but he simply wants to play like a child. He is married and fathers a son quite brutally but he loves his dog more than his family. And so a German Doctor is called to treat him. Christian befriends his physician and leaves more and more power in the hands of this foreign commoner. And then the Doctor falls in love with the Queen....

It's all true and I won't tell more than that. Just go and see it as soon as you can. It puts Hollywood and Bollywood both straight into the dust bin. Classic drama, brilliant script and a piece of thespian-ism that puts Olivier to task. Just brilliant.

This was a magnificent film, with stunning performances by the star cast and the supporting roles.

I am not an unconditional fan of Mads Mikkelsen, but he really was strong and convincing in this role.

And one could easily forgive the good doctor for falling in love with Queen Caroline, as portrayed by the lovely Alicia Vikander.

And one even had sympathy for poor old Christian in the end. I was beginning to wonder whether he was quite as insane as people thought him to be. There seemed to be a genuine friendship between him and Dr Struensee also. Had things gone slightly differently, one could have imagined them forming a happy and successful ménage à trois, and living happily ever after.

And the villains were truly villainous :-)

(I spotted a few familiar faces from Forbydelsen I and other places, including Søren Malling (Jan Mayer ), and Bent Mejding who was the standing mayor (playing a not dissimilar sort of character)

A very interesting and surprising historical lesson as well.

Highly recommended.

I saw this last night and its been on my mind a lot since then..

What a fantastic movie!!, i went in with high expectations, as i had only read very positive things about it, and I was definitely not disappointed, what a beautiful, sad and touching story Great acting overall, mads Mikkelsen is always good, and this is one of his best roles in my opinion, Alicia wikander was beautiful as the young queen, but the real star of this movie has to be Mikkel Boe Følsgaard as Christian VII, Wow!!, what a great actor, his portrayal of the mentally ill king was superb, he really made me sympathize with Christian, he may have been of his nutter and mean at times, but deep down, I think he was a good guy, but he was a very insecure young man, who didn't know how to behave properly, and who couldn't deal with the obligation of being king, he was misunderstood, and I felt really bad for him at times, I really like the portrayal of the relationship between the King and struensee, they were really very good friends/companions, and struensee was like a father to Christian.

The costumes were also beautiful, I love fashion in that period, and this movie had some beautiful clothes to dwell on.

It was about time my country did a movie on our royal history, and now they have, and the outcome is better then i could have ever expected, just beautiful, Hollywood couldn't have done it better, as a Dane I take pride in our danish (royal)history.

Go and see it!!, you wont be sorry

Love can lead to transformation yet the force of greed and the lack of political skills can bring anyone down even though you have the best intentions and act for the "greater good".

It does not happen very often that I come out of the cinema and completely shut up. It didn't feel like I was listening to a non-English dialogue. Danish felt like a familiar language ... and it was beautiful in this movie.

Though not with splendid clothes like Marie Antoinette, no intense intrigues, no large battle scenes, it was one of the best historic films I have ever seen. Everything was kept "small", yet with so much feeling that I could not take sides with any of the 3 main characters. Fair enough, the greedy and backward upper-class angered me much; just can't stand stupidity, especially when it holds back progress and the aim for improvements.