Francois Truffaut once said that 'English cinema’ was a contradiction in terms. Of course, the French director spoke before the angry young man movement, the Cool Britannia school of acting or before any James Bond films were ever made. But every now and again, a film arises to prove anew Truffaut’s statement. Though set in 1939 upstate New York, and featuring two American stars, Hyde Park on Hudson is one of the most poorly conceived and poorly assembled English films since Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage Wars (2002).
Roger Michell mostly directs without consideration of preceding or subsequent scenes
The trouble starts with Laura Linney’s voiceover, which presents the mature recollections of Daisy Suckley, the 48-year-old, fifth or sixth ('Depending on how you count") cousin of 57-year-old American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray). Daisy has been recruited by presidential staff to lift the spirits of the occasionally depressive politician and joins Roosevelt at his preferred place of work: the family homestead, known as Hyde Park, in congenial and remote upstate New York.
Naturally, as a recollection, Daisy’s narration is wiser after the fact, but Linney’s wide-eyed on-screen performance implies moronic idiocy, rather than naïveté. Those hoping that Bill Murray will exercise his charms will also be disappointed. Like his attempt to be Hunter S. Thompson in Where the Buffalo Roam, his FDR is a detached surface impersonation.
Roger Michell mostly directs without consideration of preceding or subsequent scenes, creating stylistic incoherence. Only a series of early shots with out-of-focus components to underline the fact that this story is an unreliable memoir, creates any sense of the systematic.
But the rot really sets in with the supposedly amusing scene where FDR parks his hand-operated car on a hilltop to ostensibly show Daisy the tranquil view. The film jumps to a wide shot that implies – if the jerking motion of the stationary car is any indication – that Daisy is giving the president a hand job. Coyly discreet, the scene will generate snide giggles at best.
The story then goes deeper into sitcom mode as the stuttering King George IV of England (Samuel West) and his Queen (Olivia Colman) visit to ask FDR for the USA’s assistance in the European war. Serious business, but primarily played for unfunny laughs as the priggish heads of state, feel awkward about the behaviour of the unpretentious, free-wheeling Americans.
While the poster for Hyde Park on Hudson cites The King’s Speech as a touchstone, this film has neither the richness of that Oscar-winning film’s performances or that script’s splendid cross-cultural tensions. Instead, Hyde Park on Hudson best resembles another Brit/Yank clash, My Week With Marilyn. Like Colin Clark’s 7-day seduction by the divine Miss MM, this story – despite its occurrence at a pivotal point in world history – is little more than a skeletal anecdote. The anecdote comes with a surprise (if you are unfamiliar with rumours around FDR’s sex life) though largely unsubstantiated twist, but it’s all padded with twee comedy and nudge-nudge sexual references. This atmosphere of limp triviality undercuts later dramatic pretensions and exposes this poorly made film as a lazy and cowardly still-born romp that’s really too timid to explore either sex or politics.
