It’s Christmastime, 1877, in the Austro-Hungarian capital of Vienna, and Empress Elisabeth of Austria is celebrating her 40th birthday alongside her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, and their hoity-toity royal guests. Whispers murmur that it’s all downhill from there, and her image — including her infamously ever-cinched corset — is under increasing scrutiny. Restlessness guides her peregrinations — under the guise of convalescence — from England to Bavaria, where she tantalizes former lovers, stokes her lore, and, with the help of her trusted handmaid, experiments with masquerading before her looking-glass world. Her cunning fools even the cognoscenti and, under her aegis, a young lover is secured for the Emperor — yet still, the Empress is all but free.
