Danish author Karen Blixen (who also worked under the name Isak Dineson) is best known for works like Out of Africa and Babette’s Feast, but the new Netflix film Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction is based on one of her posthumous works. A modern fairy tale with a real twist of an ending, it’s the story of a man who makes a bet that he can get a woman to fall in love with him. Too bad for him, she finds out about the bet and turns the tables on him.
Opening Shot: A castle sits perched in the mountains in the fictional land of Babenhausen. Inside the castle is Ehrengard (Alice Bier Zanden), a beautiful noblewoman who dons a fencing mask and spars with a man throughout the grounds of the castle until, flushed, they pause and take off their masks to catch their breath.
The Gist: Mikkel Boe Følsgaard plays Cazotte, a poor portrait painter who is skilled at both the art of art, and the art of seduction. At least, the Duchess of Babenhausen, Storhertuginden (Sidse Babett Knudsen) thinks he’s sexy… she throws herself on him while getting her portrait painted and he fends her off, so as not to offend her husband, the Grand Duke. But Storhertuginden remains convinced that Cazotte knows a thing or two about women, and at the public party for the unveiling of her portrait, she proposes a plan: her ailing husband is ill and about to die. Due to some archaic rules, her unmarried son, Prince Lothar, will not inherit the throne and succeed his father unless he’s married, but he’s terrible with women. Storhertuginden asks Cazotte to teach her son how to flirt too so he can woo a potential queen and inherit the throne before his dad dies.
As payment, Cazotte asks the Duchess to set him up with a beautiful but standoffish woman from a noble background named Ehrengard so he can paint her portrait, the fencer from the first scene. Cazotte holds up his end of the bargain and soon after taking on Lothar, the prince marries a young noblewoman named Ludmilla. The Duchess has to break some unfortunate news to Cazotte however: Ehrengard’s stuffy, aristocratic father wants nothing to do with Cazotte or his portrait-painting skills and forbids his daughter from being painted. Cazotte accepts that and moves on. Until…
It is discovered that Ludmilla is pregnant. A little too pregnant. Her child with Prince Lothar was conceived out of wedlock, which renders him ineligible for the crown if anyone were to find out. Specifically, if the Grand Duke’s cousin, who is a conniving guy and next in line for the throne, finds out the child was conceived before marriage, Lothar have to forfeit the throne to him. The Duchess asks Cazotte for help, so he creates a plan: Lothar, Ludmilla, himself, and a small group of servants will retreat to a very remote castle where they will wait out the pregnancy so no one will know about it or see Ludmilla’s belly. They can bring Ehrengard there as Ludmilla’s lady-in-waiting. Cazotte bets the Duchess that he can win over Ehrengard, he’ll make her fall for him and consent to having her portrait painted. If he wins the bet, he’ll have a place in the court. If he fails, the horny Duchess gets to sleep with him. (Cazotte’s plan is not to make Ehrengard fall in love with him, rather, he wants to seduce her with his art skills, essentially she is simply a pawn in a game between him and the Duchess.)
Suffice it to say, there are many many hijinks from here on out, including an attempt to hide the newborn baby from the Duke’s cousin, Ehrengard discovering Cazotte’s bet with the Duchess, and Cazotte having a duel with Ehrengard’s betrothed (oh right, she’s been engaged to another this whole time… to the man she was fencing in the first scene!). While the story is told as a traditional fairy tale, and the expectation is that Cazotte might actually win over Ehrengard, what actually happens turns into a more modern take on a fairy tale, one where the man is not as handsome or as charming as he thinks he is, and the woman is lucky enough to dodge him.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Despite it’s name, Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction is way less horny and graphic than you’d think, like a tame Dangerous Liaisons meets Beauty and the Beast.
Our Take: The first two thirds of the film are a charming farce. Cazotte is not the promiscuous libertine that the Duchess imagines him to be, he’s really more of a.. for lack of a better phrase, sexy doofus.
But as the film progresses, Cazotte goes from doofus to manipulator. He paints Ehrengard nude while she’s bathing in a lake without her knowing, and thinks she’ll be charmed when she sees the painting. The longer Cazotte lives among her, the more heavy-handed and complicated his bet with the Duchess becomes. When Ehrengard learns she is the currency in a bet, she manages to turn the tables on him and not only does she not give him the satisfaction of reciprocating his affection, but she goes back to her fiancé, Kurt.
While the film is an updated version of a classic fairy tale, the ending might actually feel happier if we saw it from Ehrengard’s point of view; after all, she’s the one who triumphed. Alas, in the epilogue we’re only told that she received a place in the new Duchess’s court. It’s a high honor for her, but not quite the punchy, girl power ending it feels like she deserves. But then we learn that Cazotte’s ending is also happy, in that he moves to Rome and lives out his days romancing the ladies about town there.
Sex and Skin: There’s one sex scene, as well as some light nudity (mostly shown in drawings and paintings). If you’re looking for a sex-filled romp, as the name seems to suggest, this ain’t it.
Parting Shot: As Cazotte sits in his opera box, making eyes at a woman in the orchestra below, he explains that he moved to Rome to develop his artistic talents. “Furthermore, my friends gave me my pseudonym. They called me… Casanova,” he says as the woman below him swoons.
Sleeper Star: As the Duchess Storhertuginden, Sidse Babett Knudsen plays the character with equal amounts of noble grace and unrivaled horniness. It’s quite a balance she’s struck, but it serves the character perfectly.
Our Call: Ehrengard is a charming romantic fairy tale that’s perfectly light and breezy if you take it as the farce that it is and aren’t looking for some kind of serious revisionist feminist fairy tale. STREAM IT… but don’t overthink it.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.