Vienna, 1877: Elizabeth (Vicky Krieps), the Austro-Hungarian Empress, is celebrating her 40th birthday with her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), aware that for a woman internationally renowned for her beauty and style the age signals the approach of decrepitude and irrelevance. Already unconventional – she has a fondness for visiting asylums, and appearing in public in disguise – Elizabeth is causing ripples at court with her increasingly uninhibited behaviour. Fraught with contradictions, Elizabeth is portrayed as both a victim of her position as a decorative figurehead, and a chain-smoking, selfish, intellectually curious, compassionate, and sexually rapacious woman bucking the restrictive conversations of her time. With a future of strictly ceremonial duties laid out in front of her, Elizabeth rebels against her stylised image and engineers a plan to protect her legacy.

Notes by David O’Mahony