Marie Kreutzer's study of the fascinating life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria puts most other 'feminist' period dramas to shame - and Vicky Krieps rules the screen.

Though many may well appreciate the film’s deliberate distortions and its rewriting of history, I found Corsage fascinating and irritating in more or less equal amounts.

Vicky Krieps, in a spectacular performance, illuminates a rather trudging narrative. Sisi spends much of the film gasping for breath; the rest she spends pining, weeping, brooding and rebelling.

A devilishly entertaining, tangibly textured, provocative film on a self-destructive woman hellbent on not conforming to societal strictures