★★☆☆☆
Dir. Nikolaj Arcel. 2012. R. 137mins. In Danish, English, French and German, with subtitles. Alicia Vikander, Mads Mikkelsen, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard.
Denmark’s submission to this year’s Academy Awards is a sweeping historical epic set in the 18th-century court of the semi-insane King Christian VII (Følsgaard), whose beleaguered English bride (Vikander) takes up with a German doctor (Mikkelsen) trying to bring enlightenment to the masses. Intrigue and eroticism abound, all of it watchable, none of it particularly exciting. (The most pulse-pounding moment is when Mikkelsen’s character receives a fan letter from Voltaire.) And the misty widescreen photography lends the proceedings a funereal air of respectability that’s like catnip to Oscar voters.—Keith Uhlich
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