Director: David Michôd
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 140 minutes
Year: 2019
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Sean Harris, Lily-Rose Depp, Robert Pattinson
Description: Hal (Timothée Chalamet), wayward prince and heir to the English throne, is crowned King henry V after his tyrannical father dies. Now the young king must navigate palace politics, the war his father left behind and the emotional strings of his past life.
Review: That Timothée Chalamet, after excellent performances as a passionately in love boy in “Call Me by Your Name” and drug addict lost soul in “Beautiful Boy”, can probably play everything with conviction, he proves during the motivational speech scene in the historical drama “The King”. Chalamet plays Henry V, King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422, and he braves his men before the Battle of Azincourt, a benchmark favourable to the English during the Hundred Years' War with France.
Such a speech requires the natural preponderance and persuasiveness and self-confidence that you would not normally expect from a 23-year-old actor who has so far mainly shown himself in vulnerable boyish roles, but Chalamet can do it. His Henry V doesn't feel much for it at first, waging war, and that makes his playing in this scene, if possible, even prettier: we're looking at a king who never seems to fully feel his nationalist war rhetoric and then only partially focuses on glowing acting - Chalamet fully masters the play.
The film by director-screenwriter David Michôd is actually a bit good and solid for the bursting talent of his protagonist. Michôd shows Henry's transformation from drunkard and devourer of women - his sick father Henry IV prefers his younger son Thomas as heir to the throne - to king with little fear, in images that look a little too familiar. Beautifully lit, finely played (note also Joel Edgerton, hidden behind a big beard, as Henry's right hand Sir John Falstaff), told in a calm tempo, with more attention to the threat of war than the war itself, but executed without surprise. The same goes for the final war in The King. There are TV series that depict a battlefield like the mud battle at Azincourt significantly better.
Robert Pattinson must have felt the same way when he took on the role of the French prince positioned opposite Henry V. Could he have forced some creative freedom on the director and producers? Pattinson said goodbye to his status as a teenage girl idol in recent years, thanks to his role as a vampire in the "Twilight" films. In a role with cult potential, in "The King" he puts on a silly French accent and then plays the insufferable Frenchman. In my opinion he comes off like a bit of a caricature. Most French character have certain stereotypical trades and aren’t pictures very positive, as for the British characters are mostly brave, heroic and righteous.
The film needs some time to get in to, but in the end it’s a solid historical drama, with beautiful shots of the environment, landscapes and battles (even if one moment in a battle looks exactly like a scene from “Game of Thrones”).
Rating: 3,5/ 5
