Review: 'Corsage' doesn't hold together as a feminist update on a 19th century costume drama, but Vicky Krieps' dynamic performance demands attention

While watching the 19th century royal story “Corsage,” one can admire the attempt writer-director Marie Kreutzer makes at pumping some fresh air into the stodgy period costume drama, but at the same time acknowledge that there are moments where the effort falls short. 

But one also must acknowledge that Vicky Krieps, who plays the central figure in this story of a royal trying to break out of her gilded cage, is out-and-out brilliant.

Krieps (familiar to Americans from “Old” and “Phantom Thread”) plays Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who in 1877 is hitting her 40th birthday — a time when royal women are officially deemed old. Her relationship with her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), are strained; their once-vigorous sex life has cooled, with both finding their bedroom comforts elsewhere. For Elisabeth, that means a barely concealed affair with her British-born riding instructor, Bay Middleton (Colin Morgan) — but soon she tires of his moony advances.

What Elisabeth wants is something to do, to be treated seriously by Franz Joseph and her royal entourage. But in the royal court in Vienna, roles are rigidly set. As Franz Joseph tells her at one point, “it is my duty to control the fate of our empire. Your duty is merely to represent.”

Elisabeth bristles at such duty, and finds little ways to dodge them. Her favorite, which she demonstrates early, is to fake a fainting spell — thus getting her out of boring tours of other royal families’ castles.

Kreutzer’s aim is to show Elisabeth as a woman apart from her time, a modern royal for decidedly unmodern times. Kreutzer gets a little anachronistic in making that point, like when Elisabeth is visiting her cousin, King Ludwig of Bavaria (Manuel Rubey), and they’re slow-dancing to the troubadour’s song, “Help Me Make It Through the Night” — which was apparently a passionate number some 90-odd years before Kris Kristofferson wrote it. (Later, a harpist sings The Rolling Stones’ “As Tears Go By.”)

But where Kreutzer’s attempts to enliven a stodgy historical drama — more drama than historical, by the looks of things — don’t play out perfectly, Krieps’ performance is a gem. The actress depicts Elisabeth as a ball of conflicting emotions, whether trying to play with her overly serious daughter Valerie (Rosa Hajjaj) or rebuffing the efforts of her adult son, Rudolf (Aaron Friesz), to make her behave more “appropriately” as an aging royal. Krieps maintains that balance, of old-world beauty and modern feminism, even when “Corsage” has trouble juggling those contradictory feelings.

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‘Corsage’

★★★

Opens Friday, January 6, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably R for graphic nudity, some sexual content, and language. Running time: 112 minutes; in German, mostly, with English subtitles.