I must say I went into Corsage with some idea of what to expect. The film’s marketing had a flavour of The Favourite or Marie Antoinette about it, a quirkily askance account of an enigmatic monarch laced with anachronism. The reality of Corsage, however, is much more subdued; Marie Kreutzer’s chronicle of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria’s fortieth year is clinical and resolutely bleak, following the sovereign through the stifling pressures both of public duty and personal neuroses.

There has been much comparison to Princess Diana in critics’ discussion of Corsage’s Elisabeth, and it is an apt one. Played by Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps in a performance that captures both the Empress’s middle-aged weariness and childlike impetuousness, she is beset by comment and speculation on all sides regarding her age, conduct, fashion, ‘complexion’. She finds respite (or at least catharsis) in a punishing regimen of exercise, corsets laced to masochistic tightness, and the alternate affections of her riding instructor George ‘Bay’ Middleton (Colin Morgan) and King Ludwig II of Bavaria, though neither flirtation is ever consummated. And she suffers from a numbing melancholy that woefully predates her culture’s ability to treat and diagnose it.

Elizabeth’s great tragedy is that she seems trapped in a lacuna; too forward-thinking for the traditions of her day, but a few decades out from the advances that could potentially have brought her the joy she so clearly craves. During a trip to England, she develops (pun intended) a friendship with Louis Le Prince, the inventor of an early motion picture camera widely credited with producing the first moving picture sequence put to film. He offers to film her, but when she asks if her voice can be captured, he informs her regretfully that they don’t have the technology yet. “So I can say whatever I like, as long as I smile?”, she playfully inquires. We are then treated to grainy footage of a grinning Elisabeth yelling a tirade no ear other than Le Prince’s will ever hear.

The footage from this encounter recurs throughout the movie, and is a fitting metaphor for Elisabeth’s approach to her duties - attempting to find what freedom she can in her imposed silence, fascinated by the possibility of what is to come, but held back by her time from experiencing its full potential. Similarly, when her lady-in-waiting Countess Marie Festetics pragmatically accepts a proposal of which Elisabeth disapproves, the camera holds claustrophobically on the pair as the sound of a passing train crescendos and diminishes, the advancing world leaving the two of them behind.

What’s particularly surprising is how many elements one would assume are adopted for the sake of dramatic flair are in fact true to life. Elisabeth did indeed often veil herself to walk among her courtiers or switch places with ladies in waiting for a moment’s respite from the obligations of the palace. Even her request to her exasperated Emperor for either a Bengal tiger or an extension to the lunatic asylum is a matter of public record.

The titular corsage is a particular historic curiosity; perpetually conscious of her looks and figure, Elisabeth would obsessively slim her waist down to as little as 16 inches with her corsetry. Here though, is where we find a microcosm of one of my misgivings about Corsage as a whole. Accurate though this motif is to Elisabeth in specific, as a commentary about the repressive societal strictures faced by women over the centuries it is a visual shorthand we’ve seen countless times before. It feels like a prerequisite of any period drama that at some point we must see our female lead be laboriously laced into a corset by her servants to signify her societal constriction. This is less a fault of Kreutzer than of the cinematic conventions that precede her, but it feeds into a larger suspicion that the film’s perspective is not as fresh as its crisp, contemporary visual language would suggest.

Part of the issue is that the film, much like Elisabeth, is caught between two worlds - the old school historical drama and punkish, stylised historical fiction. The feeling is less a seamless blend and more a hesitancy to commit to either. The soundtrack by Camille is very minimally deployed, her breathy, lilting ‘She Was’ a leitmotif for Elisabeth’s brief snatches of escape. Elsewhere, however, a servant plucks out a rendition of Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me Make it Through the Night’, while she and Ludwig waltz sadly in a crumbling hall; a harpist croons Marianne Faithfull’s ‘As Tears Go By’ at Elisabeth’s summer residence. Both these covers and she are out of joint with their time, a kind of glitch, but because of the film’s reticence to fully embrace any kind of stylism, their impact is just too soft to make a dent. Much like Elisabeth’s indiscretions with Bay, the film flirts with anachronism but never goes further, almost as if to prove to itself that it could if it wanted to.

This is in addition to the fact that Corsage is quite a joyless watch. The looming, empty apartments of the palace, the fine fashions of the Empress’s court are shot and coloured with stark dispassion. Elisabeth’s love scenes with her respective suitors are abortive and resigned. Much has been made of Corsage’s wit and irreverence (at one point I’ve seen it described as a ‘romp’). But a few wry smirks from Krieps does not a romp make. In the moments when decorum is breached (such as when Ludwig pours an entire jug of melted chocolate into her mouth), there’s no triumph in it; everything is underpinned with the same muted futility. One could argue this is finally breached with the film’s ending - Kreutzer’s biggest departure from historical reality - but without giving too much away, as someone that has some history when it comes to depression, I can’t help but bristle at any media that presents ‘embracing the void’ as emancipatory.

Corsage is one of those prestige movies I know I’m supposed to enjoy. Everything is technically polished - shots are clean and well-composed, costumes are pristine, the performances (particularly Krieps) are accomplished and sensitive. But there’s a sterility to it that left me cold. If you have the fortitude for two hours worth of near-unrelenting sadness, you will be treated to a compassionate, modern-tinged character study of a woman grazing herself in her attempts to move against the grain. For me, though, Corsage’s self-imposed restraint leaves you with little room to breathe.