Hyde Park on Hudson

Hyde Park on Hudson is a film by director Roger Michell. The film is based upon the journals and diaries of a woman named Margaret "Daisey" Suckley and her secret relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt. That's the basic premise; however the film struggles to keep Daisey herself interesting through the duration of the film. We start with a brief overview of her life before FDR as she takes care of her aunt. To imitate the journals and diaries we get most of our input from Daisey through voice over. The problem with this is that this makes her almost purely a narrator and not a character. We don't spend much time with her and her aunt before she's whisked off to FDR at Hyde Park. There we meet Bill Murray playing FDR and his performance is so unlike his usual comedy character that you really get to see how well Murray performs as an actor. This is wonderful for Murray and he brings so much to the personality of FDR, but this leaves Daisey as an incredibly weak character in comparison. While this may well have been on purpose to highlight Murray's FDR, this leaves us without an emotional anchor to the overall story. Instead the audience just gets caught up in Murray's representation of FDR.

As Daisey's relationship to FDR is established, the king and queen of England are soon brought over for a visit to Hyde Park. Personally, my only experience with these two has been through the film The King's Speech. The film did a great job of bringing Albert and Elizabeth alive as real characters and not just as powerful royal figures. Due to this, I was already attached to the two as characters going into this movie. This almost feels like a continuation of the King's Speech as the two actors used to portray Albert and Elizabeth bring a performance just as real and engaging. In fact, I found myself identifying more with these two then with FDR or Daisey. Albert and Elizabeth feel alienated at Hyde Park and the decision to hang comics depicting British soldiers as idiots doesn't help matters. At this point I felt myself caught between the two personalities of FDR and Albert (referred to as Bertie in this film). Daisey completely left my mind and her returning voice was again purely a narrator for the moments between Albert and FDR. This is not all bad of course as you have some great parallels between Albert and FDR in how they overcome their respective disabilities and manage to lead their countries. When Daisey's character arc with the other mistresses of FDR comes rushing back into the picture, it all feels too forced and unwanted. I wanted to see more interactions with FDR and Albert or even just between Albert and Elizabeth.

In the end, I think the film is definitely worth watching for the outstanding performances by Bill Murray, Samuel West (Albert), and Olivia Colman (Elizabeth), but don't come to the film expecting a tightly woven narrative about the troubles of FDR's mistresses.