The King (2019)

Just finished The King, a modern interpretation of parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V, seemingly targeted at millennials. It's common knowledge that much of Shakespeare's Henry V is based on hearsay, yet his pre-battle speeches at Barfleur ('Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.') and Agincourt ('We band of brothers') have become the stuff of legend and remain the most stirring battle speeches of our time. In The King, Henry's pre-battle speech at Agincourt is neither stirring or inspirational due to being a watered-down, 21st-century, politically correct rendition, which I found hard to stomach. The King portrays Henry (Hal) as a pacifist and reluctant leader, a fop to Catherine of Valois and I found Timothee Chalomet's (an American) performance as Hal to be too 21st century and not in the slightest bit convincing. In fact, he seemed reluctant to carry out any of the deeds that the real Henry V actually carried out. The battle scenes were very realistic and the cinematography was superb, but... This is yet another nod to the PC millennials, diluting and revising both Shakespeare and history into easily digestible snack bites for the sensitive of our era.

It’s a fine half-adaptation, but suffers from the compromise it makes. On the one hand, it is not simply another adaptation of Shakespeare - it has the advantages of taking a fresh look at the material, but for whatever reason still somehow carried across much of the fictional elements of Shakespeare’s plays. At the same time, whilst the writing is good, it lacks the poetry of a more straight adaptation (e.g. the Hollow Crown). I do find the performances to be compelling, and in particular, find it interesting to see Henry V as a contemplative humanist rather than a victorious warlord. It’s an interesting idea (if perhaps ahistoric) and does perhaps act as a medication on more modern conflicts. In particular, the film diverges significantly from Shakespeare’s plot significantly towards the end. It seems to try to this to change to modify the original 16th century propaganda of the play to a discussion of Realpolitik. This is a good idea in principle, but is somewhat undercut from having just watched an hour glorifying Henry. It is also technically impressive - both the art and cinematography departments have outdone themselves - standards we have perhaps come to expect from Netflix productions. On the whole, I admire the attempt to give a fresh take on the source material, but would rather they took inspiration from the history, rather than from a play written centuries after.

At last an opportunity to see Timothée Chalamet doing something a little grittier. Sadly, t'was not to be. His portrayal of this great character from early 15th Century British history left me cold. He looked like a good meal would have killed him, never mind a bloodthirsty foe clad in iron armed with an axe. The accent held up reasonably well, but he still struggles to shake off the winsome, "butter wouldn't melt" image and as he has to pretty much carry this film en seul, it just doesn't really work. The rare appearances by Robert Pattinson border on the hammy; with his final appearance reminding me of the first few steps taken by "Bambi" back in 1942. It is great that Netflix are prepared to fund projects like this, but the plain truth is that no amount of money can compensate for a poor screenplay - think Shakespeare "light" - supplemented with a few high-profile cameo contributions and some, admittedly, fantastic battle scenarios.