I’m a Shakespeare guy. I’ve been teaching both the Wars of the Roses and Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One for years. I go to the movies regularly. I like Timothée Chalamet when I see him in things. I have had students recommend this movie. So, why did I only just recently see Netflix’s The King? I even liked to point out that the French actor Chalamet is playing one of England’s most renowned kings while the very English Robert Pattinson was the French Dauphin. I mean, that’s just weird.
Well, I’ve finally seen it. I’ll chalk it up to the fact that, 75% of the time or so, when I do opt to watch a Netflix original, it’s usually kinda mediocre.
Hal (Chalamet) is the oldest son of Henry IV (Ben Mendelsohn), but he’s also a guy who’d rather just get drunk at the local tavern and party with his pal Sir John Falstaff (Joel Edgerton), a knight fallen on hard times. Heck, Hal doesn’t even mind that much when his sick father tells him that he’s not going to be king, instead giving the crown to Hal’s younger brother Thomas (Dean-Charles Chapman). However, as Thomas heads off to defeat a rebellion, Hal thinks twice of it and rides off, inserts himself into the conflict, and challenges the leader of the rebellion to a one-on-one fight to save the lives of their soldiers. Hal’s offer is taken up, and he prevails. His brother, disgusted, goes off to fight elsewhere.
Fate has it that both Thomas and King Henry pass along, and Hal finds himself crowned as King Henry V. From there, it seems as if the French are out to get the new English king. Hal, reluctantly, agrees with his advisors, particularly his Chief Justice Sir William Gascoigne (Sean Harris), seem to be urging him towards. However, Hal knows himself well enough to know he needs a man he can trust to come along and invites Falstaff to come along as his chief military advisor. Hal, for the most part, is not a particularly bloodthirsty general, and he has to deal with impatient people on his side and a particularly obnoxious Dauphin (Pattinson). History says Hal will win the Battle of Agincourt in a most decisive manner. How will he feel about it afterwards?
OK, so, I had no idea what to expect from this. I mean, I knew it was about Henry V, but I didn’t expect it to be a mix and match of the historic Henry and the version from Shakespeare’s plays. I mean, Falstaff is basically a fictional character, but this movie takes Shakespeare’s old, fat drunk and makes him younger, fitter, and wiser, a washed-up soldier who actually knows his business and is mostly disregarded despite his rank due to what side he was fighting on. Plus, it’s Joel Edgerton. I didn’t know he was in this movie, but that statement also applies to Mendelsohn, Harris, and even Thomasin McKenzie as Hal’s sister Philippa, Queen of Denmark, and by the end of the movie, Lily-Rose Depp as Hal’s eventual wife, the French princess Catherine of Valois. About the only complaint I had about the acting is Pattinson’s markedly ridiculous French accent.
Instead, this is basically a character piece on a man who doesn’t want to be king. Hal is perfectly content, at first, to let his kid brother be the next king. But he also has a greater concern for the people of his country than pretty much any other noble he rubs elbows with, hence the reason he brings Falstaff into the war. If anything, Hal’s attitudes are very much more appropriate for a modern political leader than the historic Henry V might have actually believed. It takes a lot to prod Hal into war with France, and he goes a lot more reluctantly than the historic one would have, but the movie also suggests he’s a man who fears he’s being manipulated by people more interested in their own power than anything that benefits the nation as a whole, knowing full well he needs someone wiser than himself to always be honest with him, but also knowing such people are hard to find in his inner circle. It makes for an interesting take on a character that has long simply been portrayed as a noble war hero who just went off and conquered France. This one is a young man who got a job he wasn’t prepared for but will do the best he can to prevail anyway while trying to do the best he can without hurting too many people, all while living in an era that won’t really let him do that.
Grade: B+
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