Nikolaj Arcel directs this Academy Award-nominated Danish period drama based on a novel by Bodil Steensen-Leth. Mads Mikkelsen stars as Johann Friedrich Struensee, a bright young doctor who becomes personal physician to the psychologically unstable King Frederik of Denmark (William Jøhnk Nielsen). Struensee's ambitions know no bounds; as well as winning the affections of the young Queen Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander), he becomes increasingly involved in the King's state affairs, using his position to forward the enlightenment, implementing freedom of the press and of expression, abolishing torture and serfdom, reforming the school system and curtailing the privileges of the aristocracy.