A Royal Affair

If any royal affair deserves cinematic treatment, it’s this one. Fraught with illicit romance and political intrigue, the 18th-century love triangle among British Princess Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander), Danish King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard) and his trusted physician and advisor Johann Friedrich Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen) is inextricably intertwined with the radical and short-lived Enlightenment reforms instituted during their reign. Lush with period detail and throbbing with lusty melodrama, director-cowriter Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair finds complexity and nuance in each of its main characters, painting none as the hero, none as the victim....  read more