Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharina Lorenz, Colin Morgan
Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps gives an exhilarating performance as an imperious empress in Marie Kreutzer’s (The Ground Beneath My Feet) irreverent period biopic.
Elisabeth of Austria – or ‘Sissi’ – is known for her beauty and fashion plate status. But in 1877, celebrating her 40th birthday, she’s finding it harder than ever to tighten her corsets to the required 18 inches and to maintain her desirable public image. Her political role at court is performative; she is icily disliked by the family of her unfaithful husband, Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), suspected of disloyalty, and body-shamed by attendants. Furious and lonely, hungry for new life, she leaves Vienna for England and Bavaria to visit old friends and former lovers and rediscover the purpose and excitement of her youth.
A bold reflection on a woman’s worth as she seeks new agency in 19th century Europe, Corsage pulls back the curtain on Empress Elisabeth to reveal her as a subversive and fascinating historical figure. A depiction at odds with the simplistic, kitsch ‘Sissi’ legend of European popular culture (and previous filmmaking), Corsage disrupts the sanctity of the costume drama, with glitches in period detail that pull at the surface of the story, enabling viewers to enter it in a more immediate way than historical stories often allow – aided by a sly and masterful turn from Krieps, who brilliantly embodies a modern woman out of her time.
