Review of Corsage

Strange, slow film about the life of Elizabeth Empress of Austria-Hungary. The depiction of her life in the film appears really improbable, but a reading of her actual bio from Wikipedia is even weirder. The film doesn't seem to be very concerned to stick to the historical narrative, which seems odd in a biopic. For example [spoiler alert], it shows Elizabeth committing suicide by jumping into the sea, but the real Elizabeth died as a result of an unlikely assassination.  

It's just about possible that the film is an alternative account of the known facts (rather than a parallel account) because we are shown Elizabeth increasingly changing places with one of her ladies-in-waiting...so maybe she does commit suicide, and it's the lady-in-waiting who dies in the assassination many years later. Of course the Emperor Franz Josef would have had to been in on this, because although they don't spend that much time together they do occasionally have perfunctory sex, and he would surely have noticed.

Despite the slowness I enjoyed it, particularly the depictions of stultifying court life. Elizabeth doesn't seem to have much fun. I note in passing that although the rooms in the Imperial palaces are very grand, the corridors between them are shabby and cluttered with old furniture. Maybe that's how they were.