A Royal Affair

This exciting, character-driven historical drama shows how a passionate and forbidden romance changed the course of Danish history. British princess Caroline Mathilda (Alicia Vikander) arrives at the Danish court in 1766 as a naive teen, crushed to discover that King Christian (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) is mentally unstable and not attracted to her in the least. Nevertheless, to the disappointment of the wily Dowager Queen (a fearsome Trine Dyrholm) and the king’s ambitious, manipulative tutor, Guldberg, Caroline manages to produce an heir. When scheming nobles encourage the appointment of Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen), a German intellectual from the Danish colony of Altoona, as physician to the pious court, his rationalist ways soothe the troubled king, who makes him his confidant and, eventually, chief minister. Caroline, too, warms to the visionary doctor. Soon they’re sharing more than a library—and rapidly proposing reforms that benefit peasants and serfs at the expense of the nobles, who are asked to pay back taxes and give up sinecures.

Although the royal affair outrages the court, the idealistic Struensee fails to see that it is his challenge to entrenched interests that will cause trouble. Goading the nobles (who are unwilling to give up their privileges), the military (which opposes demobilization) and the general populace (which fears foreign influence), Guldberg and the Dowager use every means possible to seize power…