Nov 14, 2012

Movie Review: A Royal Affair (2012)

My next Oscar watch movie is Danish submission for Academy Award best foreign language film nomination - A Royal Affair

This most fresh picture tells a story of mad and young King Christian VII, his wife queen Caroline Mathilde - unhappy English princess and Johann Sturensee - a German doctor who truly believes that can change something for good in Denmark.

Christian is insane, he is not the one who can rule the country, there is nothing interesting in governing for him, and he would rather enjoy by acting, theater, poems his dog and whores. Christian can not de facto make any kind of decisions and he does not want to. The board of trustees - a bunch of people who can not be trusted - took over the control of whole kingdom. Their government leads Denmark to poverty and injustice.

Even his beloved wife Caroline is unable to change the king and make him get power in his own hands to bring the fame of Danish Kingdom back. But there is a man, Dr Sturensee who was hired to heal Christian and help him in overcoming the madness. Johann who has not done this before, tries to make the king feel like a king, makes him talk in the name of people and go against the board. They both start to think how can Denmark become better place to live.

But Caroline falls in love with Dr Sturensee and gets pregnant. As the baby was born, her mother - the Queen was sent away from castle and Johann was executed. The board recovers its power overruling the king again.

A Royal Affair is truly one of the best submissions of this year. The movie is brilliant in terms of acting, writing and directing.

Mikkel Boe Folsgaard (Christian) delivers genuinely perfect portrait of the King. He is amazing in every aspect, he's good at both dramatic and comedy parts of his character. It is hard to play Christian VII as he changes very much in every moment. The actor should be able to quickly switch from angry king to funny one and I believe Mikkel dealt with this in the best way.

Alicia Vikander (Caroline) plays the most dramatic character in whole movie - a person who's punishment was possibly the hardest one - died without seeing any of her child. At the same time she has been severe Queen, protecting her child, obeying wife to the king, strong person for the whole kingdom and the most unhappy one in the Denmark.

Mads Mikkelsen's (Johann Sturensee) act is the most average and weird character. He is unemotional, but passionate, quiet but adroit, best friend and most cruel enemy of the king. He is not the best part of the movie but still makes the cast pretty charming.

Unlike most of historic movies, A Royal Affair is not boring, it has lots of refreshing moments, delightful sets and touching storyline. I did not really expected this movie to be that logical and well written. The story itself is dramatic and dynamic. The dialogues are pretty natural, smart and easy. However the writer does not give you too much to think, the pictures just roll and at the end of the film, you don't have to guess anything (which can be pro or con at the same time).

As for technical part of the movie like costumes, production design, music and cinematography, they were above the average, especially the first one. Which makes the film better candidate for being nominated for Best Foreign Language nomination.

All in all, this is really good movie to watch, it kind of reminds me The Madness of King George. Though I recommend this film to my dear visitors, watch it because it is worth.

8/10

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2 Comments:

At Nov 14, 2012, 4:10:00 PM , Blogger Shane Slater said...

I agree, this movie was pretty great! Well designed and acted.

 
At Nov 14, 2012, 4:19:00 PM , Blogger Nika said...

Yes, that was really good one. Did not expect this movie to be that much spectacular. But still it is not best candidate for Oscar, I guess. How do you think?

 

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