Strait-laced

There's a certain category of film that can't be considered anything but "Oscar bait", which means something that fits all the categories of the usual Best Picture candidate: drama, grandiose, historical, usually European. They usually appear around this time of year because it's the best time to make impact with audiences after they've already been fed to the critics and/or the festivals. Corsage is one of those. It was one of the favorites at Cannes back in May and will doubtlessly be up for a slew of awards that also always includes Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. There's nothing wrong with those films and I've enjoyed many of them, but this one seems to be so targeted at that approach that it left behind anything that resembled an interesting plot somewhere between concept and (Best) screenplay.

The story is nominally about Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Franz Joseph I of Austria and then Austria-Hungary; last of the Hapsburg emperors. It's a known historical fact that the Bavarian duchess was unhappy with the stodgy atmosphere at court in Vienna after marrying Franz at the age of 16 and that she was unhappy with her treatment by her relatives, especially the mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, because she had only given birth to two daughters in the first couple years of her reign and not a male heir. On top of that, Elisabeth was deeply wounded by the loss of her first daughter, Sophie (named by the domineering Archduchess, without consulting Elisabeth) likely to typhus. She found life much more pleasant in the associated kingdom of Hungary, embracing Hungarian culture and learning the language. Many of the Hapsburgs blamed her for encouraging the emperor to accept the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, in which the latter was nominally independent, although still subservient to the Viennese throne. Now, all of that sounds like an interesting premise for a film, doesn't it? Unfortunately, Corsage engages almost none of that, with only occasional references to the empress' attachment to Hungary and the loss of Sophie as the cardinal points of her existence that show a very depressed, bored, and melancholy woman.

Instead, the film is largely about following said depressed, bored, and melancholy woman around her domain waiting for her to do something other than pretend to faint under the pressure of her corsage (corset) so that she can get away and play with her dogs under the half-bemused and half-annoyed gaze of her ladies-in-waiting. It's not a poor portrayal of a woman in emotional anguish, who functions in a life that is wholly colored by that angst while still demonstrating just how much pain she's in. I think Vicky Krieps did really well in that role to demonstrate just how much Elisabeth was trying to free herself from the constraints of a role that she really didn't want. Of course, the contrast is that the role that she really didn't want was one that offered her literally anything she wanted at any time, as Franz was not only the doting husband but also looked the other way past her dalliance with her cousin, King Ludwig of Bavaria, and basically anything else she wanted that wouldn't have been accepted in the painfully straight-laced Hapsburg demesne. She had three servants who not only wore dresses every day to match their blond, brunette, and auburn hair but had also pledged themselves to do basically anything she asked. But depression sometimes washes all of that in shades of gray (Been there. Not with the servants, though.) You can live the absolute life of luxury and still feel like you're in a prison. That prison was also a social one, as the film suggests that Elisabeth's known obsession with her weight and physical appearance was something driven by snide comments from court and the newspapers. The film spends much time on this as both social commentary on the modern age and an additional explanation for her state of mind.

And that stuff can be interesting. Films about human emotion and the lengths that they drive us to have appeal and merit all their own. I was just writing about something like that a couple weeks ago. But this one doesn't really have any of those emotional peaks or crevasses that let the audience inside of the trauma that's occurring. Instead, we just kind of drift along with the main character, wondering why we're still here. At one point, Elisabeth tries to entice Franz into bed with her, but when he responds, still obviously concerned about her mental health when they'd been physically distant for so long, she encourages him only long enough to finally stop him when he thinks he's getting to home base, suggesting that she can no longer take the impact of potentially having another child. We, as the audience, kind of ended up in the same situation, where moments that looked like they might be developing into something of real interest instead became more of the same, as we returned to the ritual of the corsage, not only being tied into one, but also the modern English meaning, which is something that's supposed to always be pretty, even if it's only used for one, rather superfluous event. Similarly, Corsage isn't a bad film, but it's a very particular one that seems to be designed more to turn the heads of Academy members than to really tell an interesting story.