Review of Corsage, directed by Marie Kreutzer

If you’re new here and found this blog through the mysterious powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I’m a dedicated reader and movie watcher who thought to turn this website into a little digital archive of sorts.

I was watching and reading so much that I wanted to keep track of it all, so I began blogging as a way to keep these books as memories somewhat forever.

That said, I recently fell into a period of unemployment, and this blog was a solace for me. Not only was it a way to make a little bit of money when there was nothing else coming my way really, but I found, after getting my finances in order, that I enjoyed sitting down to write blog posts when I had nothing else to do in my day.

Back when I still had a car, and a job, I had an AMC A List subscription. For my non-Americans reading this, it’s a national theater chain in the US that offers a subscription of seeing three movies per week. It was something that really kept me sane throughout graduate school, as I would unwind by going to the movies and shut my brain off for a bit. I was also still working as a critic during this time, so it helped with research.

My blog was something I’d just devoted more time too as well, which meant I was seeing and consuming so many movies that were across a wide, diverse spectrum. I remember when Corsage came out, I kept booking my ticket to go see the movie, and then cancelling it.

I did really want to see this movie on a big screen, but the times at my local AMC theater kept screening it at were just so inconvenient. They were late at night, and was taking classes at those time. There were never any showtimes that fit within my schedule perfectly.

So it took a few years before I ended up watching the film. And maybe waiting this long built up the hype for me, as I was actually really excited to watch it.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to keep rambling; I know introductions on blog posts can get quite long, and they’re not what everyone is here for.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria struggles with aging, her marriage, and being someone of noble status.

When I first found out about this movie, I was surprised to see it about Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She was someone I had read about when I was a teenager who had just been given unfiltered access to the Internet. Considering I grew up reading books like The Royal Diaries, and had read the one on her, once I was older I was obsessed with royal women’s stories and history.

In this movie, Elisabeth is about to celebrate her 40th birthday. Like so many other royal women, if you dig deeper into their histories, she does not have a good marriage with her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, and as we can see in the movie, they’re practically estranged at this point.

On her birthday you can really see her unhappiness, and she also is struggling with her aging as well. She tries to keep her weight in check to prevent this, and even more trouble happens when her beloved youngest daughter, Marie Valerie, becomes sick after Elisabeth took her out for a ride.

Her son Rudolf decides to take Marie Valerie and her on a trip, and we see Elisabeth flirting and failing to start a romance with her riding instructor. She also goes out into nature with an aspirational filmmaker and the inventor of an early form of camera, Louis Le Prince, and he films her. Elisabeth goes home to Franz and decides to work on their marriage, but that doesn’t work either.

She also learns he’s having an affair with a younger woman, which probably doesn’t help, but the conflict hits the fan when Rudolf leaves and Elisabeth wants to go, too, with Marie Valerie. Franz doesn’t agree with this at all, and Elisabeth throws herself out the window, which she somehow survives with very few injuries.

Elisabeth then goes to Bavaria, where she stays with Ludwig II. She hopes that this will help her emotions stabilize and that she feels better about her life, but she’s unable to focus on this task with the war going on. She ends up going to a mental ward for a bit, coming back and forth, and Franz covers the bills for this one. It’s the least he can do.

They give her heroin as her health worsens, and Elisabeth decides to cut her hair. She requests her lady-in-waiting go in public for her, demands that her daughter to go on a diet as well, and even asks the girl that Franz had an affair with to come visit him on a more regular basis.

The movies ends with Elisabeth going to Ancona with all of the women in her life, including her daughter, and jumping into the ocean.

Overall Thoughts

This was such a gorgeous movie visually. There’s something we began studying in my film criticism courses in undergrad about the female gaze, and I feel like this is a movie that does such a good job with depicting and show women in a visual sense.

Krieps is also radiant as Elisabeth, even when she is hitting her low moments. I’ve only ever seen her in Old, which is quite regrettable, but I could see her being an excellent actress across the board with how well she nailed this role. I was truly sucked into the world of the film mainly because of her.

All of this said, I could see how this movie isn’t for everyone. Those who have shorter attention spans (thinking TikTok generation when I say this) are going to hate these kinds of movies, as there are plenty of moments and scenes that are silent and you need to focus on the emotion the actors are putting into the scene.

Go ahead and watch the film if you’re interested in its plot (or Krieps)! I think this was very much worth watching at least once, even though I’m not sure I’d return to it any time soon.

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