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| STAR RATINGS EXPLAINED |
| Unmissable |
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| Excellent |
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| Good |
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| Poor |
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| Tragic |
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| FILM DETAILS | Certificate
12A | | Cast
Bill Murray
Laura Linney
Samuel West
Olivia Colman. | | Directors
Roger Michell. | | Screenwriters
Richard Nelson. | | Running Time
95 minutes |
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Hyde Park On Hudson
The King’s Speech II: Coming To America
Plot
Spinster Daisy (Linney) arrives at the Roosevelt estate to provide company for distant cousin Franklin (Murray). An affair ensues, disrupted by the visit of King George VI (West). Review
Hopelessly miscast as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, and not even attempting his distinctive voice — this is like Ray Winstone playing Winston Churchill — Bill Murray’s disabled President doesn’t seem to be running a country he led out of the Great Depression and into World War II. Rather, he holds court at Hyde Park — his estate, not the stop on the Piccadilly line — with his more-than-a-secretary Missy (Elizabeth Marvel) and his feisty wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams), his penchant for the ladies known to all but unremarked by the media of the day. Into the noisy mixed company of patricians and social reformers creeps innocent, mousy Margaret ‘Daisy’ Suckley (Laura Linney), so naive that once she’s been groomed into giving FDR a handjob on one of their outings, she thinks it’s love.
This is mystifying, since nothing more closely resembling sex, let alone chemistry, ever occurs between them on screen, thank heavens. Nothing much, period, occurs, until, in what was a first American visit by any British monarch, the King and Queen of England descend for a few anxious days in 1939. Samuel West and Olivia Colman bring much-needed zest as Bertie and Elizabeth, he still stammering and she considerably more tetchy than Helena Bonham Carter’s supportive wifey in The King’s Speech.
But there is a vast disconnect between drab Daisy’s visits and that
of the royals. Inspired by Daisy’s diaries and letters, Richard Nelson’s screenplay uses abundant voiceover from Linney for her point of view. But since she didn’t even dine with the royalty, and certainly wasn’t in their bedroom, she couldn’t possibly have known what was going on there. The only thing that one can suppose connects the A and B stories, and we’re straining here, is that both involve ‘special relationships’, the one between countries more fruitful than the personal one.
Verdict
Disappointing given the talent and situation, dull as ditchwater and historically suspect, another The King’s Speech it definitely is not. Nice costumes, though.
Reviewed by Angie Errigo
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Average user rating for Hyde Park On Hudson
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| Not that bad | | I read this review just before I went to see it, so it gave me low expectations. Maybe 2 stars is a little harsh and Bill Murray actually isn't bad as FDR, after all not too many people nowadays are old enough to remember him and although we know who he was and what he looked like, I don't think his actual personality is as well known as the likes of Churchill or Hitler. Or maybe I'm just being ignorant. But I think it's no worse than casting DiCaprio as J Egdar Hoover or Howard Hughes, and the... More | | | Posted by G MAN at 18:16, 05 February 2013 | Report This Post | |
| | | Disappointing but better than W.E. | | Since the Oscar-winning The King’s Speech, there have been a few films after that not only featured King George VI and The Queen Mother, but also a central relationship between a royalist and a commoner. Last year, we had Madonna’s truly horrible drama about King Edward VIII’s fling with Wallis Simpson that featured Laurence Fox’s inferior impersonation of Bertie compared to Colin Firth’s, which was the least of the film’s problems. Now, we see the King and Queen as the comedy royalist in Roger... More | | | Posted by R W at 19:35, 01 February 2013 | Report This Post | |
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