"En kongelig affære" or "A Royal Affair" is generally seen as a Danish movie, but if we are precise, then it is a co-production between Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Germany. There are also four languages spoken in here, but the most frequent is Danish of course. This movie premiered back in spring 2012, so it is also already comfortably over a decade old now. It is a pretty long movie at almost two hours and twenty minutes and the director here was Nikolaj Arcel. He is also one of the three writers credited. Another would be Rasmus Heisterberg and this is no coincidence as these two have collaborated on other occasions. Interestingly enough, the duo is not just a director/writer combination, but Arcel has his most credits in writing too and the duo has worked together on screenplays for films where Arcel did not direct like he did this time. Millennium trilogy. Do I need to say more? But today, we talk about this movie here. The third writer is Bodil Steensen-Leth and there is not too much to her body of work. She wrote the novel this is based on and apparently it is her only work that got turned into a movie. Quite a success nonetheless if we look at how big this film here turned out. Interestingly enough, she also has one acting credit on imdb that happened years, actually decades before this film got made. Maybe there are other credits that are just not listed. Imdb is probably not totally spot-on and complete with Danish television. Anyway, if we look at the cast here, we will find quite a few interesting names. It was Alicia Vikander's breakthrough movie and she won the Oscar a few years later for another period piece. Might be her niche. Then again, she is always kinda good. The same can definitely be said about Mads Mikkelsen, one of my favorite actors. He always delivers, no matter if it is a dark crime comedy like the one that he has appeared in not too long ago where he collaborated again with Arcel of if it is a period piece like the one we have here.
I will not post an in-depth review about all the cast members here, but one more I have to mention and that would be Mikkel Boe Følsgaard. The name probably does not sound familiar right away to most and I do include myself here, but this is really a three-character movie you could say and he held his own very well next to these two big names. Or who are considered big names today if we keep Vikander in mind and she wasn't a big name back then. Mikkelsen was of course already perhaps Denmark's biggest actor at that point. It says a lot that he still returns to his country all the time to shoot new films. This is how good Danish films were back then and still are. Could you imagine Christoph Waltz coming back to Germany? Absolutely not and for good reason. Says a lot that Denmark has been ahead of us for quite some time now in terms of film quality. Sad state of affairs. But I am drifting away. Another thing that can be said about this film is that it received a really great amount of awards recognition all over the world accumulating in the film being nominated in the foreign language category at both the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. It did not win either, but still a huge success, especially because royalty-themed period pieces are nothing you find too often in those foreign language categories. In Denmark itself, it was also pretty triumphant and won so many categories at the national film awards back then, but interestingly enough still came short for the big prize. Maybe they actually did not want a period piece to win. Definitely finished second there though. Oh, by the way, before I get to the story and plot, let me add that Trine Dyrholm is in this film as well. Her body of work is really spectacular.
To summarize the plot briefly, we have the King of Denmark here and he makes Vikander's character his queen. Gently-speaking, he is not exactly a handsome, nice or likable fella at all and clearly she does not love him. Things get more complicated when the king recruits a new doctor (with a German background) and Vikander's character falls for said doctor and the two are having an affair that stays secret for the most part. So there are no perfect characters in here, they all have their flaws. The two lovebirds get along well for the most part, but there is also tension between them when one of the duo considers leaving the country. All this happens in the face of people related to the king eager to claim the crown for themselves. This results in a great deal of intrigue, especially towards the end. Councils get dissolved and the power keeps switching to others. Near the end, the king has lost almost all of his power because of his mental issues. However, in the second half, he clearly moves away from being an antagonist. He cares for the people of his country and does not want to see them suffer, even if his plans are almost impossible to execute with the money attached to them. The real revelation that he is not a gruesome ruler comes as well when he forgives his doctor for the man's breach of faith linked to the queen. It's something that almost nobody would have forgiven, let alone how he reacts when he realizes who fathered the second child. Or he also did not force the queen to have sex with him ever. There is simply no intercourse as she does not want to. There it becomes obvious who the real villains are. The ending is unhappy in a way with what happens to all three protagonists, but a jump ahead in time showed us the good guys win. Or we were at least supposed to see them as the good guys. This was even harmonic in a unifying way as the female protagonist's two children from different men reunited and collaborated with one of the kids' father, the former king, to reclaim the crown and they succeeded and what followed were years of glory apparently for Denmark. This is what the closing credits tell us.
Then again, the fate of the protagonists could be predicted to some extent, at least in terms of Mikkelsen's character. He had a conversation with a friend before that and we hear said friend tell him that he does not want to lose his buddy and that he fears that he might lose his head one day. Like literally. Death sentence and executions were still a thing back then. Another indicator was the dead man they find on one occasion and the words we hear when they describe what happened, namely that he was killed by his owner or boss or whatever you want to call him because he was not loyal to him. I don't have the exact words, but this was such an indicator that Mikkelsen's character's affair would become public and he would get executed as a consequence. Well, he did, but still the reasons and motivations behind the killing were different and the one in charge was not the King of Denmark. On the contrary, the king was still convinced that he could make sure that the two friends would not get killed. However, when inside the car, Mikkelsen's character realizes what is actually going on. This was maybe the one moment that showed us how he was definitely to be considered one of the good guys too because he did not tell his friend or anything, which would have made things way worse, but kept his cool in the face of his approaching death. I was still a bit confused by how crazy the crowd went there when the friend is executed and how there was utter silence when Mikkelsen's character was executed. At the same time, the king was hardly anything other than a string puppet. They had him play with his little Black boy and that was it. His initial reaction when he met the boy may have felt a bit bizarre, but it was understandable. I mean there was no internet or television back then and he had never seen a Black human before probably. He maybe found him even a bit cute like an animal at first, so it was not racism by any means. He liked the boy. I would not even want to imagine what kind of politically correct story German filmmakers would have come up with linked to this part of the plot. Destroyed all creativity perhaps. Thanks Denmark!
I am getting closer to the end of my review, but just a little bit of brainstorming: Of course, there is no denying how charming and pretty Vikander is in this movie. But she also did a lot acting-wise and I liked her mannerisms in the subtle scenes and her obviousness during other moments like when she moves closer to the king during their first evening. I thought for a moment that, after getting up, she might move closer to the other guys there who are described as the king's enemies despite being his family. That would have ruined all her chances though if she wanted to become the queen. She definitely did and her insecurities at the very start are also entertaining to watch. There, she still expected the king to be a great catch, not just in terms of rank. The truth hit her pretty quickly already the moment when he was hiding to surprise her during their first meeting. Or also when a little later he fires the only friend she kinda had inside that gilded cage. This was still when the king could be considered a true antagonist, even if the female protagonist talked about him in a bit of a pitiful manner during a voice-over we hear at the very beginning that was still taken from her final days when she was close to dying. There were no hard feelings from her side. She understood his mental issues. Or at least saw them as mitigating and realized he was not evil. That is it then. There is a lot to discover with this movie. I suggest you go for it. It is surely worth it, even if you do not like the three lead actors as much as I do. Maybe they can win you over with this movie and change your perception. A movie that is overall good with occasional great moments. Surely worth seeing and I also love how the Danish word for "king" is "kong". That is all now, no more monkey business.
