A Royal Affair Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.5

A Royal Affair Blu-ray Movie Review

Progressive Period Drama

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater March 19, 2013

If you thought The Duchess lacked depth and Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette was too froufrou, A Royal Affair is the film that will make you believe again that costume dramas can have both substance and style. Yes, the film has all the expected visual staples —lavish sets, frilly costumes, elaborate powder wigs—but the period piece frippery here is merely garnish for the meaty narrative, which has been stewed in Enlightenment-era ideas about religion and politics, citizen's rights and state responsibilities.

Danish writer/director Nikolaj Arcel and co-writer Rasmus Heisterberg tell the little-known tale—outside of Denmark, anyway—of the mad King Christian VII, the English wife he didn't love, and the freethinking German court physician who befriended the couple and used his influence to become a behind-the-scenes reformer. In the process, the filmmakers insert a sly subtext about the present clash of liberal and conservative ideologies, giving A Royal Affair a discussion-worthy contemporary relevance that's rare for this genre. That they manage to do this without sacrificing the human, emotional aspects of the story—the romance and betrayal, the loneliness of being a royal—is doubly impressive. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this stately production is one of 2012's finest in any tongue.

Mads Mikkelsen as Johann Struensee

Swedish actress Alicia Vikander—most recently seen in Anna Karenina—plays King George III's sister, the bright and talented Princess Caroline Mathilde, who is shipped off to Copenhagen to wed the young King Christian VII (Mikkel Følsgaard), a mentally imbalanced 17-year-old more concerned with the theatre, his hound Gourmand, and trips to upscale whorehouses than governing his country. He's the sort of brat who stands up at a play to interrupt an actor's monologue and finish it himself. When his new queen puts on a piano recital for the impressed members of the court, he even erupts and warns her, "Don't steal my light." Their relationship is practically nonexistent—he thinks she's boring and that it's unfashionable to love one's wife—but she bears him a son and, with her queenly duty out of the way, resigns herself to living an isolated life in the palace. She doesn't even care when Christian leaves on a two-year tour of Europe.

Here, the film's perspective switches to predominantly follow Johann Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen), a German doctor who—inspired by Voltaire, Rousseau, and other Enlightenment minds—anonymously writes fed-up tracts about the lack of peasants' rights and the stranglehold of religion on politics. When Christian falls ill in Hamburg, the exiled Danish counts Brandt (Cyron Bjørn Melville) and Rantzau (Thomas W. Gabrielsson) approach Struensee and urge him—with ulterior motives of their own—to apply to become the king's personal physician. Struensee gets the job and develops an unusual rapport with Christian, who doesn't have many friends owing to his juvenile and often confrontational personality. (Some historians contend he was possibly schizophrenic.) By the time they return to Denmark, Struensee has become the king's closest confidante and unofficial advisor.

Caroline hates Struensee at first—she thinks he eggs on the king's bad behavior—but her feelings change when she sees the library of progressive literature he's managed to smuggle inside the country, which has been censoring all subversive books. With a mutual love of horseback riding and philosophy, the two become close and embark on a secret midnight affair that will ultimately be their undoing. Meanwhile, with his influence in ascendence, Struensee mentors the king and—appealing to his love of acting—even writes up policy speeches for him to deliver in front of the court council, a crotchety group of orthodox aristocrats keen on maintaining the status quo.

Christian is a willing mouthpiece for Struensee's ideas, and together they institute liberal reforms that attract the praise of Voltaire himself—abolishing state censorship, opening orphanages, and inoculating the general public against smallpox. The central antagonist to their efforts is Ove Høegh- Guldberg (David Dencik), a pious statesman who sees these changes as unnecessary and decadent, to the extent of saying that the founding of orphanages is "practically rewarding women for lechery." Politically minded viewers will notice parallels to several current arguments—from healthcare reform and women's rights to class warfare and the separation of church and state—and the film leaves the nagging impression that perhaps we haven't come as far since the Enlightenment as some of us would like to think.

As pointed as A Royal Affair can be—and yes, it does skew hard to the left—it doesn't turn its characters into mere symbols for the ideas they espouse. Between the smart writing and the trio of fine performances from Mads Mikkelson, Alicia Vikander, and acting newcomer Mikkel Følsgaard, these historical figures come alive as well-rounded, flesh-and-blood human beings. Struensee is at once a hero of rationality, an ambitious manipulator, and a careless reformer whose desires topple his idealism. Mathilde is the archetypal lonely queen who finds forbidden love—think Guinevere and Lancelot—but she's also sharp and well-read, and uses her own knowledge of the Enlightenment to alter court affairs. Poor Christian, though, might be the film's most compelling character. He's easy to hate, but easier to pity—a puppet with no real control over his life, used and betrayed by everyone around him, including the man who was his mentor and father figure. The emotional connections between the three are just as complex as the film's political intrigue, and on top of all this, A Royal Affair is gorgeously shot and vivid with period detail. What more could you ask from a costume drama?

A Royal Affair Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Royal Affair glides onto Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that faithfully captures the film's hazy period mood. Shot on 35mm, the grain pattern of the image is sometimes gritty and noticeable from a normal viewing distance, but it's always natural-looking and untouched by digital noise reduction or other types of filtering. The slightly chunky film stock is actually a good fit for the intended atmosphere; it gives the picture a warmth and tangibility that it might not otherwise have if it were shot digitally. Compression doesn't seem to be an problem—I didn't spot any artifacts, banding, or blocking—and the image is entirely free from debris. If the picture is a little soft outside of closeups, I suspect that's an intentional aesthetic choice; regardless, tighter shots do display finely resolved textures on skin and clothing—see the abundance of ruffles and lace—and there's never any doubt that you're looking at a high definition presentation. Likewise, some might point to the screenshots and complain that the color looks somewhat thin, with the flat contrast of grayish shadows and wispy highlights, but this is certainly the intended look for the grading, and in motion it's very effective at selling a specific vibe. No real issues here.

A Royal Affair Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is as evocative as the cinematography. While certainly never action-heavy or intricate when it comes to dynamics and sound design—this is a fairly quiet costume drama, after all—the mix has a refined sense of ambience and acoustics, frequently using the complete soundfield to generate an aural sense of place. The murmuring of nobles at a court dinner, the wind blowing through the rear speakers, the pounding rain and claps of thunder—it's all engaging and complements the moving images nicely. The music too is wonderful, with The English Patient composer Gabriel Yared and Splice's Cyrille Aufort joining forces for the film's lush orchestral score. Cutting through all this, the Danish dialogue is always clean and sharp. (Trivia: While the characters in the film speak Danish, the royalty and aristocracy of the late 1700s in Copenhagen would've been speaking mainly French and German, with Danish relegated to the commoners.) The disc includes optional English, English SDH, and Spanish subtitles, which appear in easy-to-read white lettering.

A Royal Affair Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Arcel and Alicia Vikander (HD, 33:05): A trio of interviews featuring the director and his two stars fielding a reporter's questions at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival.
• Portraits & Biographies (HD, text): Historical portraits and brief biographies of Christian VII, Caroline Mathilde, and Johann Struensee.
• Royal Family Tree (HD, text): Genealogy fiends, take note. Here you'll find a complete family tree showing the ties between the English and Danish monarchies from 1760 to the present day.
• Theatrical Trailer (HD, 2:01)
• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment (HD, 6:21)

A Royal Affair Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of 2012's best film's, director Nikolaj Arcel's A Royal Affair is one of those rare costume pictures that's not only visually sumptuous, but also thematically substantial, with compelling characters who are at once champions of Enlightenment ideals and deeply flawed human beings. While there are definitely analogs to other period pieces here—the princess wedding another country's king sight-unseen, the political maneuvering and power struggles—the story of Christian VII, his queen, and her lover is a largely unfamiliar one to non-Danish audiences, and fans of the genre will find it gripping. Magnolia's Blu-ray release is just as stately as the film itself, so I have no qualms recommending A Royal Affair to anyone interested in smart historical dramas.