Margrete: Queen of the North

2021 [DANISH]

Biography / Drama / History

9
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 76% · 19 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 76%
IMDb Rating 6.6/10 10 3714 3.7K

historical royal court usurper 15th century

Plot summary

1402. Queen Margrete I has gathered the Nordic kingdoms in a union, ruled through her adopted son, Erik. But a conspiracy is in the making and Margrete finds herself in an impossible dilemma that could shatter her life's work: The Kalmar Union.

Director

Charlotte Sieling Photo
Charlotte Sieling

Top cast

Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir Photo
Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir as Hildur
Agnes Westerlund Rase Photo
Agnes Westerlund Rase as Astrid
Søren Malling Photo
Søren Malling as Peder
Jakob Oftebro Photo
Jakob Oftebro as Man from Graudenz
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
1.08 GB
1280*536
Danish 2.0
NR
Subtitles us   dk  
24 fps
2 hr 0 min
Seeds 1
2.22 GB
1920*804
Danish 5.1
NR
Subtitles us   dk  
24 fps
2 hr 0 min
Seeds 6

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by JamesHitchcock 8 / 10

Money Well Spent

Reviewed by CinemaSerf 7 / 10

Margrete - Queen of the North

With the Kalmar Union still in it's infancy, Queen Margrete (Trine Dyrholm) is trying to keep the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians aligned under the nominal kingship of her adopted son Erik (Morten Hee Andersen) in the face of the increasing fear of aggression from the neighbouring Germans. This task is suddenly made much more difficult when a pretender to his throne is unveiled. This gent (Jakob Oftebro) claims to be the son of the queen, and though she certainly had a son it was thought that he had been murdered many years earlier. The Norwegians are quick to support this new claim, but she is less inclined to panic and/or to execute summary justice - and that rouses suspicions about the stranger's true identity amidst the nobles and manages to antagonise her adopted son who has no intention of surrendering his throne. Adding to the pressures building on the Queen, Erik is set to marry the daughter of King Henry IV of England to cement a relationship that could help guarantee everyone's safety - but will the English want their royal dynasty married into the wrong family? Gradually, we all realise that there has been quite a degree of conspiring and lying going on for many years that spreads right to the heart of not just the kingdom, but to an influential church that cannot be guaranteed to do the right thing if it's not in it's own interests. This is quite a well produced and paced historical drama that illustrates quite engagingly the difficulties faced by anyone in holding together this loose confederation of warring nations. The fact that she was a woman doesn't appear to have inhibited her power, indeed her guile and shrewdness appear to have been quite well respected by those who appreciated her goals for unity and peace. To that end Dyrholm delivers competently, as does Søren Malling as the duplicitous priest and a solid supporting cast. It's perhaps a little verbose and also a little tame at times, but it's a period of history that is interesting to discover more about as the viking nations emerged from their raping and pillaging phase into something altogether more cohesive and important in the grand scheme of European politics. It's worth a watch if you're interested in (theatrical) Nordic history.
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