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Timothée Chalamet is the war like Henry V in the confused The King |
Director: David Michôd
Cast: Timothée Chalamet (King Henry V), Joel
Edgerton (Sir John Falstaff), Robert Pattinson (The Dauphin), Sean Harris
(William Gascoigne), Thomasin McKenzie (Queen Phillippa), Ben Mendelsohn (Henry
IV), Tom Glynn-Carney (Henry “Hotspur” Percy), Lily-Rose Depp (Princess
Catherine), Dean-Charles Chapman (Thomas, Duke of Clarence), Thibault de
Montalembert (King Charles VI), Tara Fitzgerald (Hooper), Andrew Havill
(Archbishop of Canterbury)
This is a story that is pretty familiar to most people now –
after all, Shakespeare’s play has probably been being played somewhere in the
world for most of the last 500 years. Edgerton and Michôd collaborated on the
story and script of this restaging, or reimagining, of Shakespeare’s epic of
the wayward fun-loving prince turned hardened warrior king. Despite being handsomely
filmed, and impressively shot, this makes for an odd and unusual film which falls
between the two stools, as it is faithful to neither history nor the
Shakespeare original.
The rough concept remains the same. Prince Hal (Timothée
Chalamet) is not just a young man who has fun in the taverns of London, he’s
also quite forward looking in his attitudes, and just can’t understand why he
should be made to carry on the rivalries of his father, the fearsome Henry IV
(a broodingly miffed Ben Mendelsohn) or why he should continue the wars that
the council pressures him into. When he becomes king, however, Henry is
persuaded by his counsellor William Gascoigne (Sean Harris), that the path to
peace for the realm – and safety for his subjects – can only be through
unifying the kingdom by war with France. Appointing the only man he trusts –
his old drinking companion and famed soldier Sir John Falstaff (Joel Edgerton)
– as the Marshal of his armies, Henry heads to France where destiny awaits.
Michôd’s film is at its strongest when it focuses on the
visuals and the aesthetic of its age. It’s beautifully shot, with several
striking images, from execution courtyards to the battle of Agincourt itself,
which takes place in an increasingly grimy field. The battle itself ends up
feeling more than a little reminiscent of ideas from Game of Thrones – in fact a few core images are straight rip-offs
from the famous “Battle of the Bastards” episode – but it at least looks good,
even if there are few things new in it. The costumes and production design
don’t feel like they strike a wrong note either with the grimy, lived-in feel.
More of the issues come around the script. The film’s
concept of Henry initially as this rather woke modern king – he just wants
peace and to give up these tiresome obsessive conflicts of his father – who
slowly becomes more colder and ruthless as the film progresses does at least
make thematic sense in the film, but it still rings a little untrue. Much as I
would like, it’s hard to believe that any prince like this could ever have
existed at the time, and so cool and calculating is Chalamet’s performance from
the first that he never feels like a genuine, young, naïve princeling whom we
can sympathise with early on.
It makes the film’s arc rather cold, and Hal an even more
unknowable character than the film perhaps even intends. There is very little
warmth or genuine friendship between Hal and Falstaff, and Hal moves so quickly
to the imagining (and enacting) of war crimes during his time in France that
his descent towards potential tyrant feels far too sharp to carry impact. Even
in the early days of his reign he’s swift to have potential destablisers in his
court executed with no mercy. Where is the fall, if he is such a cold fish to
start with? And with Chalamet at his most restrained (like the royal baggage
and the accent are a straight-jacket around him), how can an audience invest in
him?
And what are we supposed to be making of this anyway, since
the film is at equal pains to suggest that the king may be the subject of
manipulation and lies that force his hand into war? This Henry, we learn,
values truth and honesty highest – but this doesn’t stop him getting pissed
when met with counter-arguments from his advisors (even Falstaff) or reacting
with cold fury and disavowal when things don’t go his way. It’s a confusing
attempt to add an ill-fitting modern morality to a king who essentially in real
life spent most of his life at war, and was to die on campaign in France still
trying to cement his rights at a young age.
Edgerton and Michôd’s script fails to really square this
circle, and all the attempts to have its cake and eat it (the peace loving king
still manages to kick arse, including killing Hotspur in single combat thus
averting the Battle of Shrewsbury from ever happening) don’t quite pan out.
Edgerton writes himself a decent role as Sir John Falstaff, here reimagined as
a million miles from the drunken, cowardly knight into a courageous and
hardened soldier who has no time for the compromises and deceit of court (in
contrast to Henry’s other advisor, the Machiavellian Gascoigne played with a
playful archness by Sean Harris). Making Falstaff a respected figure like this
rather flies in the face of the logic of why Henry IV is so annoyed about his
son spending time with him, but never mind.
It’s not really Shakespeare and it’s not really history. It
sticks closest perhaps to Shakespeare in its portrayal of the French as
arrogant fops – led by Robert Pattinson going delightfully OTT as the Dauphin –
but it never really quite works out what it wants to be. With its Game of Thrones look and feel, and
prince who is both great warrior and reluctant warlord, peace-lover and
ruthless executor of his enemies, it feels scattergun and confused rather than
coherent and whole.