Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

Originally called 'Corset', this period drama puts a finger up to other period dramas just as Empress Elisabeth of Austria tries to do as she turns 40 and is deemed to be 'old': she refuses to accept this and wears her corset tighter each day to keep her figure and beauty as it has been, whilst finding more and more ways to keep her status in society and not be consigned to irrelevance. "Elisabeth toys with avoidance tactics and schemes to get herself out of the daily royal performance she is expected to endure. On a quest for personal freedom, she travels to England and Bavaria where former lovers once taught her to ride horses and embrace her liberty. She poses for portraits dressed in ball gowns with white fur trim and red jewels, smoking lilac Sobranies – a vision in kitsch" – Caitlin Guinlan, Little White Lies.

Elisabeth has had many dramas and documentaries made about her ever since she was alive and this is one of five films made in the last two years; she was to her time what Diana was to ours.

"What is rewarding about this picture, however, is the way that it interrogates her iconic status. By focusing on the Empress in middle age (or old age, given that forty was the average life expectancy for Austrian women in the late 19th century), the film touches on the loss of status of a woman who was valued almost entirely for her appearance. But more interestingly, it also suggests that aging can be a release, capturing that liberating, relatable moment of realisation that she is finally running out of f---s to give" – Wendy Ide, Screen International.