A Royal Affair

We know from the first frames that this is a love story that will end tragically. The woman narrating is the involuntary Queen of Denmark, trapped in an arranged marriage with the King, a total asswipe. She’s English, and her life seems hopeless … until you compare it with the lives of the people living in the flowing open sewers and giant rats that make up the rest of Copenhagen, the part outside of the monstrous palace. It’s hard for me to get too involved in the bad emotional lives of the extremely, gigantically, totally obliviously rich when the life expectancy of the common people is about six years. It’s a lovely production, full of great costumes and amazing settings, but it ultimately left me cold. It was Denmark’s entry for Best Foreign Language Picture in 2012, but lost to Amour, which I still haven’t seen.