(Canada/Finland/Germany/Sweden, 106 min.)
Dir. Mika Kaurismäki, Writ. Michel Marc Bouchard
Starring: Malin Buska, Sarah Gadon, Michael Nyqvist, Patrick
Bauchau, Lucas Bryant, Francois Arnaud, Martina Gedeck
2015 is an epic year for Canadian co-productions with films
like The Witch, Room and Brooklyn among the most impressive and high profile efforts. Add
the sweeping historical drama The Girl
King to the list, for this gorgeously realized production is truly an
international affair. This joint effort with Finland, Sweden, and Germany tells
the story of Sweden's Queen Kristina, played by Malin Buska, the nation's virgin
sovereign circa 1650. Kristina is an unconventional monarch with her
forward-thinking philosophy and interest in girls. The Girl King is a timely parable of power and love that feels
relevant to today, for instead of playing the Royal Uterus, a queen’s then-conventional
role, Kristina is Sweden's Elizabeth with a queer crown.
While there's nothing overtly Canadian about the story--Kristina and her girls don't play hockey, drink Tim Huron's, or guzzle maple syrup--but her love interest, Ebba, is played by Canuck ingénue Sarah Gadon, while other Canadian stars pepper the supporting roles and relish the script by Québécois scribe Michel Marc Bouchard (Tom at the Farm). The Girl King recalls Jean-Marc Vallée’s The Young Victoria with its dramatic story of a young girl thrust into power at an early age, only to be manipulated by her closest advisors and family members on matters of state and marriage. Her mother (Martina Gedeck, The Lives of Others) is a little too cuckoo to raise a queen, since Kristina is ripped from her clutches after mommy makes her kiss her dead father good morning and good night every day for two years. (Ick.) This creepy introduction reveals that The Girl King is no conventional slice of history.
As Kristina comes of age under the watchful guidance of her uncle,
Chancellor Axel Oxensierna (Michael Nyquist from the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films), and
receives a lot of come-hither looks and marriage proposals from her cousins,
she defies expectations by, gasp (!), thinking for herself. Yes, this girl king
quotes René Descartes and the poets on the throne instead of towing the line in
the war between the Catholics and the Protestants. She wants peace and her
first vow following her coronation is to lead Sweden into a peaceful
enlightenment.
Her other vow, a far more personal one, is to bed the beautiful
countess making eyes with her at the party. Cue Canuck Sarah Gadon in a role
that perfectly utilizes her doe eyes and delicate appearance. Ebba intoxicates
Queen Kristina with her innocence and beauty. Forget those cousins with the
modern day abs, this girl’s fit for a queen!
The Girl
King takes Kristina’s awkward seduction of Ebba with just the right grain
of humour. The monarch knows nothing about sex or women, and it’s hard to hide
the fact that one swings the other way when rippling gentlemen callers with
impressive titles are offering marriage proposals from around the land. Instead,
Kristina uses her power to put Ebba into her care. Ebba, now a lady in waiting,
is at Kristina’s side day and night. She even receives the title of Royal Bed
Warmer as Kristina demands shared bodily warmth to roast the sheet from those
chilly winter nights. (Why aren’t there Royal Bed Warmers in Canada?)
The Girl
King lives on the strength of the performances at the heart of its
love story as Buska and Gadon elevate the drama. Buska is a revelation as Kristina
as she creates a headstrong woman wise beyond her years, but also one who
grapples with power and responsibility at the cusp of her sexual awakening. The
actress relishes a good close-up and ripples layers of angst, passion, and
intelligence under Queen Kristina’s surface as her advisors undermine and
thwart her. Her chemistry with Gadon is strong as the two adopt a
master/servant relationship, but also one that develops into mutual respect
until forces within the castle see their love as the devil’s work. Gadon plays
the role of the innocent well to Buska’s tempestuous lust, as Ebba returns
Kristina’s affection as a response, an order, as she shyly, hesitantly responds
to Kristina’s touch with subservience and mild confusion. The affection’s
there, though, in the restrained passion of Gadon’s performance.
The script by Michel Marc Bouchard, which is the
playwright/screenwriter’s first English effort, soars better with the thematic
overtones of Queen Kristina’s story than it does with the practical and
sometimes stilted words that move it along at an awkward pace. Gay or not,
Kristina emphasizes a woman’s right to independence just as much as she uses
her inquisitiveness on the throne to champion Sweden’s independence. The Girl King plays well into the
competing ideologies and practices in religion that divide sovereigns and
nations as Kristina undergoes the guidance of Descartes (Patrick Bauchau) and
while their exchanges are often forced, they reveal Queen Kristina’s inquisitiveness
and her willingness to seek higher truths without concern for standard
convention. Use of religion also situates Kristina’s pursuit of Ebba into
ambitious territory, as one notably passionate tryst upon a sacred text, dubbed
“The Devil’s Bible,” realizes the closest consummation of Kristina and Ebba as
something both good and wicked as director Mika Kaurismaki (Road North) intertwines modern sensibility
with the values that constrained love like Kristina’s from flourishing.
The costumes by Marjatta Nissinen, similarly, evokes notions
of androgyny and gender fluidity as Kristina adorns herself in tomboyish pirate
garb instead of the frilly laces that Ebba favours. The exquisite costumes are
very impressive for a production of such modest scale, as is the ornate
production design, which uses props especially well to highlight changes in
time and industry. Beautiful lensing by Guy Dufaux (Barney’s Version) provides some moody interiors to match Kristina’s
passion and rage. The music by Anssi Tikanmäki, however, is fatally overwrought
even if the instrumentation sounds smartly researched and tailored to the time.
The score of The Girl King frankly
overwhelms the drama at almost every turn.
The supporting performances, though, are generally good.
Gedeck, for one, is fantastically unhinged in her brief appearance as Kristina’s
mother. Bauchau, on the other hand, is a stiff Descartes. (His death scene
solicited a restrained ripple of laughter from the audience.) Buska and Gadon,
however, are consistently strong, and as The
Girl King rests on their chemistry, this slice of historical drama satisfies
as a tale of forbidden love whenever the two actresses share the screen.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
The Girl King screened at Ottawa’s Inside Out LGBT Film Festival on
Thursday, Oct. 22 at The ByTowne.
