Just so...so bad

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

In 1632, protestant King Gustav of Sweden is killed on the battlefield. His daughter Kristina is the heir. Europe is engulfed with the conflict between Protestants and Catholics. Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (Michael Nyqvist) takes Kristina away from her mad mother. In 1644, Kristina (Malin Buska) takes the throne. Axel's son Johan is desperate to marry her but she lusts for Countess Ebba Sparre (Sarah Gadon). Her love of the works of noted Catholic René Descartes and her pursuit of peace endanger support from the court.There is a chance that this is hampered by history. This should be a queer love story but it has more than that which keeps it from taking off. It struggles to put the drama over the history. Swedish actress Buska is fine but she is limited. It's compelling history but it's less compelling cinema.

To me, this film is brilliant. From the start to the end; it shows perfectly and transmits who was Queen Kristina from Sweden and what she wanted for her and her country. The film respects the century rules in which the film is set; the plot is just wonderful because it doesn't just portrays who was this awesome woman but also stays in what she went through, with everything: her sexuality, her ideas being different from what she has been taught, her desire for being more than just a queen ruling her kingdom marrying a man and having kids; her not accepting what everyone else thought was the best for her, because only she knew what was the best for her and her life. it not only portrays her life but portrays a brilliant, strong, wise, well written fictional character, who was not afraid of being different: who was not afraid of what other people thought about her, who did what she could in a kingdom full of people who didn't had other beliefs that what they believed about, who had a lot of knowledge and still was desiring for more; in a century where the full concept of lgbt people didn't even existed she fought till the end for what her heart felt, and in my opinion that was everything to me. This film is good in many ways: if you would like to know a little bit more of history; if you would like to know an incredible woman that maybe you didn't knew before because they never spoke to you about this in history class; if you would like to watch a good story with a great plot and storyline; if you would like to watch girl on girl representation on just the xvii century (yeah, lesbians and bisexuals existed in the xvii century. it is not something of now, just in case someone forgets). I watched it with hoping of some good cinematography and I ended really happy because it exceeded my expectations in everything. Kristina was awesome in every aspect and I really appreciate that there's a movie about her and her life with so many good details, with people that existed in the real life almost 400 years ago, with no twisted stuff that maybe she didn't do. It portrays exactly what she was and what she did (further the idea that it still is a movie and not a documentary so there's things that are only of the film, but still it keeps her essence and her attitude; her likes and dislikes; her curiosity and her greatness.) Definitely a movie to not miss. Excellent.-

Mika Kaurismaki's Queen Christina of Sweden (Malin Buska) is tall, beautiful, and without a hump on one shoulder, but otherwise she's a fair representation of the historic figure. In her restless spirit, intellectual appetite, impatience with the patriarchy and her lesbianism she's a much more accurate representation than Rouben Mamoulian's (Garbo in Queen Christina, 1933). Of course Kaurismaki opts to revive the 17th Century Christina story now because it's a sharp reflection of our times. I don't know how Swedes or Finns will see their lives in this film, but much of it rings clear for North America and Europe today. The film bristles with pertinence, like the male advisor's "Peace doesn't fill our coffers" and her "Austerity is sadistic."Christina's advocacy of peace, culture, the arts, make her a model for modern leadership. In her refusal to accept male authority, especially not to allow any man to claim her as a field he can plow for his pleasure, she is the prototypal feminist. Sadly, the contemporary also limns through her ultimate defeat by the male authority and their rejection of her same-sex passion as "deviance." Her male counsellors conspire against her, drive off her beloved, and drive Christina into madness, until she escapes. We're still hung up on the questions she poses to Descartes: what is love, how do we deal with it, how can we free ourselves from it. We still crave the freedom to define our own destiny and escape our inherited structures and strictures. If we've moved beyond Descartes' assumption that our emotions have a physical source, we continue to build upon his confidence in empirical evidence and in the essential use of reason. But another Cartesian statement propels the film: To find the truth we must abandon everything we have learned or assumed and establish a new understanding of our world. This is the triumph of discovery over habit, reason over delusion, freedom over "destiny." This is how this Christina constantly flies in the face of what she has been taught and what is expected of her. Her escape is ironic. Her advisors having long insisted she marry to produce a clear heir to the throne, she now proclaims one suitor her son and bestows upon him her royal authority. With a quarter of the treasury she departs to Rome, where she converts to Catholicism and enjoys the life of secular culture and stimulation she has craved. As one counsellor bitterly observes, having rejected all her male suitors she settles into life under the authority of the Pope. The last shots, however, play her as exulting in openness, freedom and the light the Swedish court and "thinkers" denied her. She abandons her throne and power to recreate herself in Rome. Now, here's the crowning irony. Mika and younger brother Aki Kaurismaki are famous for acerbic contemporary stories about inarticulate, hard drinking, ugly and lugubrious losers, steeped in 1950s rock and roll. Nobody in a blind test would guess The Girl King is a Kaurismaki film. But here the director does what his heroine does and what her healthiest mentor, Descartes, prescribed. To find the truth, to see how Queen Christina reflects upon our current reality, Kaurismaki discarded his customary period, his familiar genres and his signature style, then and bathos — to make something completely new. And true to our day as it is to his subject's.

I caught this film entirely by accident, with zero expectations or knowledge of the subject matter. I am unqualified to speak to the historicity of the events. But if it is close to historical events, what a beautiful film was made of it. Dealing with politics and religion and feminism, it is a rare little gem. Christina, the Queen (actually "King") of Sweden from 1632 (age 6) until 1654, was tutored by a unique man, and grew up to be a young woman with curiosity about the world and a taste for life, she shook the institutions of the day, with an unkind mixture of success and failures. The film is mostly in English with a little French (accompanied by subtitles), the actors do a fine job, and I really appreciated the makeup team's subtle approach. I might have appreciated a script less focused on romance and more on personality and accomplishments, but then again, in our 20s, hormones can dominate all.