Dangerous liaisons

A Royal Affair is a beautifully mounted historical drama which goes right where so many films of this type go wrong: it doesn’t get distracted by carriages and candlelight and pretty frocks and balls and sumptuous feasts, but keeps its eye firmly and surely on character and story and, my, what a fascinating story it is. Set in late-18th-century Denmark, it is the account of a love triangle between a German doctor, the Queen of Denmark and her imbecilic husband, the King, which sounds preposterous, but is actually based on a true event that not only led to scandal but also ultimately transformed the country.

Although, at times, this is rather coolly aloof in tone, the cast is knock-out, and it is so excellently and expertly done, I’m pretty sure it will float your boat, although my advice? Don’t float for more than four hours without a toilet break or you could come down with a bladder infection. Like syphilis, this is not something that only affects royals.

Raised in England, Caroline Mathilde (played by rising Swedish star Alicia Vikander), daughter of the Prince of Wales, is dispatched at 15 to Denmark to marry her cousin, King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard). Caroline is hopeful of this union. She has heard Christian is handsome, and interested in art and literature. But when she arrives in Copenhagen she discovers a nincompoop of unsound mind given to prancing and shrieking and giggling randomly. (Folsgaard makes this part his own, but I was also minded of Tom Hulce’s Amadeus.) Still, she does her royal duty, and produces a male heir, but then slams the door to her bedroom chamber shut. Bored, and seeking amusement, Christian disappears to Europe, returning a year later with a new personal physician, Johann Struensee (a superbly compelling Mads Mikkelsen).