Produced by Pathé, Baby Cow Productions, BBC Film and Ingenious Media, and distributed by Pathé in France and Switzerland as a standalone distributor, and in the UK via Warner Bros.Pictures. The film premiered in Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 2022, and was released in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2022.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
Media Contact (Sydney): Sue Dayes, Tracey Mair Publicity
Ph: + 61 (0) 404 022 489
Maybe
you are not a King Richard III fanatic, unlike the Richard III Society.
“We have been working since 1924 to secure a more balanced assessment
of the king and to support research into his life and times.” If you
would like to become one, you can join the nearby branch at http://www.richardiii-nsw.org.au/ .
But
this movie is the true story, with a fascinating twist (or three) of
Philippa Langley’s quest to find the grave of the Plantagenet King
Richard III, (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) despite the accepted
story that after only two years on the throne he was killed and his body
thrown into the river near Leicester, after the Battle of Bosworth
Field, as the Tudors took over the monarchy.
Even though, just as
in Ancient Greek theatre where the audience knew the end, we know that
his buried bones were found in 2012, the movie looks as though it might
be a tragedy for Philippa. Twist one is that she, like Shakespeare’s
version in The Tragedy of King Richard III, is disabled –
emotionally rather than physically – and has to work around and often
fight against herself to keep going. What we see as her obsession, even
to the point of hallucinations, becomes her saving grace.
Twist
two is that she is a woman facing a world of university men for whom
strictly ‘rational’ thinking and putting down of ‘womanly’ feelings is
the norm – however wrong their conclusions are, while hers turn out to
be the truth.
And the final twist is in the history, when Queen
Elizabeth II – whom we take to be the natural descendant of the Tudors
Henry VII, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I (on the throne when William
Shakespeare’s play was published in 1597) – agreed to accept that
Richard had been a legitimate king, and deserved royal honours when he
was reburied in Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015.
So The Lost King
is a dramatic mystery play, but directed – in the acting style and in
the cutting – with a light touch. Philippa is an entirely human
character, as performed by Sally Hawkins, alongside Steve Coogan as John
Langley, committed to her own suburban family, engagingly worrying
about what she feels she has to do, and surprising herself as she finds
she can deal with powerful people.
I found myself worrying for
her, surprised with her, laughing alongside her, and enormously grateful
for what she achieved. Especially for her debunking so much of the
conventional denigration of Richard as King of England.
I’m a
one-time £10 Pom who was brought up by republican socialists and
believed in Shakespeare. Philippa Langley, via Sally Hawkins, and Harry
Lloyd as her imaginary King Richard III, in these enjoyable
performances have helped me understand that we are all human – only
human – no matter our class, our abilities, and disabilities.
It’s that warmth of feeling that makes the movie The Lost King very well worth viewing. It opens at Dendy Canberra tomorrow – Friday 9 December 2022.
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| Sally Hawkins, and Harry Lloyd in The Lost King as Philippa Langley and her imaginary King Richard III |
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