There's some fine performances in Roger Michell's Hyde Park on Hudson: Bill Murray is effervescent as a troubled but casually humorous Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Samuel West as King George VI holds his own against Colin Firth's Academy Award-winning performance of the same character in 2011's The King's Speech. The comparison is apt; this is gentle social drama and humor, an American Downton Abbey tale of the United States' elite.
It's frustrating, then, that Michell fumbles the film's parallel plot, the love story between FDR and Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney), sixth cousin of Roosevelt and one of several of his "special companions." The script, by Richard Nelson, doesn't give Linney' a lot to work with. Her narration is flooded with observations straight out of a pedestrian and prim romance novel: "No promises were made made, so none could be broken." "How I longed for him." "I don't think I can share." And, following an awkward scene early in the movie where Daisy manually sexually gratifies FDR: "I knew them that we were not just fifth cousins, but very good friends." Linney is not the most effusive of actors, especially with these flat and clichéd lines. I found it impossible to be patient with the Daisy storyline when much more interesting things were going on with the Royals, but the realization that Daisy defines this as a weekend that founds two very "Special Relationships," we're anxious for her to be locked away in a closet for the rest of the film. Even the movie poster has a problem nailing down this subplot, proclaiming "Bill Murray is Franklin D. Roosevelt / Laura Linney". Murray plays it straight but with a mischievous twinkle—not entirely FDR, but certainly who a modern audience is comfortable to think FDR was. Constructed to a wheelchair moderates spotlights his deadpan humor and will convince disbelievers that "the guy from Ghostbusters" can indeed give a compelling portrayal of one of America's greats. There's a lovely sadness in the moments that spotlight Roosevelt's paralysis: an aide carries him, FDR's arms wrapped around his neck, across the garden; the world news photographers refrain from photographing him while being carried. FDR confides to George VI that like George's stutter, no one dares to ever mention the absolutely obvious——while he painstakingly makes his own way from his chair to his desk, gripping onto tables and pulling his legs along. It's an uncomfortable movement to watch, and Murray nails it perfectly: strain without panic, the physically demanding journey he must take each day.
Samuel West and Olivia Colman (as the King and Queen of England) have some fine, funny and touching scenes, especially their puzzlement and distress over a series of War of 1812 prints in the King's room showing the American soldiers heroically slaying British military monkeys, and over the announced menu for the weekend's historic picnic—both only rehearsals for the more pressing question of whether the US will support England in the approaching war.
Go to see it for the Royals and the extraordinary chemistry between Bill Murray and Samuel West in their extended late-night pow-wow, for the lush landscapes and glamorous period architecture, for the American-style Upstairs, Downstairs glimpse of the servants eavesdropping at FDR's door. As a love story, it's trite, if well intentioned. Still, this is the finest film out this season in which a major plot point is whether the King of England will eat a hot dog.
Hyde Park on Hudson premieres at the 50th New York Film Festival on Sunday, September 30; subsequent showtimes on October 3, 8, and 13; opens in select theatres December 7.
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