Film Review – Corsage

Vicky Krieps has become a respected actress in recent years, typically associated with pictures containing intense dramatic content, including her breakthrough role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread.” She provides quality performances with a special focus on psychological disturbances, and “Corsage” seems tailor-made for her talents. The endeavor examines a year in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, which is filled with isolating experiences and a slow reduction of coping skills, creating a wide-open space for the production to detail such developing unrest inside a royal setting. However, writer/director Marie Kreutzer doesn’t pay much attention to Elisabeth’s actual life, instead using the woman to inspire a study of all the loneliness, frustration, and resentment that develops when a female is treated as nothing more than an ornament. “Corsage” has potent scenes of neglect, and Krieps does a fine job making the storm raging inside Elisabeth feel as real as possible, with Kreutzer occasionally struggling to make a film as interesting as her star. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com