Sidse Babett Knudsen makes authority convincing without making it comfortable. We rate her most when she lets the effort show: a woman can be in charge, tired of the job and still unwilling to let somebody down.
Fi1m perspective
In The Duke of Burgundy (2015), Sidse Babett Knudsen’s Cynthia has to keep playing the severe lover when the effort is beginning to show. Knudsen makes her reluctance visible while leaving her affection intact. We were moved by Cynthia’s determination to keep doing this for Evelyn, even as it becomes tiring. Peter Strickland has given her something more demanding than a commanding manner to maintain. She has to let us understand why Cynthia carries on.
Her screen breakthrough came in the improvised comedy Let's Get Lost (1997), followed by the Danish success of Den eneste ene (1999). Those beginnings are worth remembering when she is cast as another woman in charge: comic timing is part of her skill, too. Playing Birgitte Nyborg in Borgen (2010–2022) brought her an international audience, and Theresa Cullen in Westworld (2016–2018) extended that television work. There is a risk of repeatedly casting her for the same reassuring competence. We would rather see a part give her something awkward to do with it.
The Duke of Burgundy does precisely that, helped by Chiara D’Anna as Evelyn, whose commitment to submitting can itself become demanding. D’Anna takes Evelyn’s desires seriously enough that we can understand the pressure on Cynthia without treating either woman as a joke. Knudsen does not turn reluctance into a plea for us to take her side. That leaves the actors room to be funny about the work involved in fulfilling a fantasy. Strickland gets a tender romance out of behaviour that might have been played merely for embarrassment.
We do lose patience with some of the repeated rituals in The Duke of Burgundy. The film can labour what Knudsen has already made clear about the effort involved. That does not spoil the tenderness or the dry humour, but it makes this a recommendation with a caveat. Start here, allowing for a romance that occasionally makes its point once more than we need.
Biography
Sidse Babett Knudsen is a Danish actress. She trained at the Théâtre de l'Ombre in Paris from 1987 to 1990 and made her screen debut in the 1997 improvisational comedy Let's Get Lost, for which she received both the Robert and Bodil awards for Best Actress.
She achieved international recognition for her leading role as Birgitte Nyborg in the Danish television series Borgen (2010–2022). Knudsen has appeared in films including After the Wedding (2006), The Duke of Burgundy (2015) as Cynthia, A Hologram for the King (2016), Inferno (2016), and In Fabric (2018). In 2016 she won the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for Courted. Her other television work includes Westworld (2016–2018) as Theresa Cullen and the series Kill Jackie (2026) as Karenina.
