Seems like old FDR was a real JFK in the Lothario stakes…
In a kinder time when the press was not the pap pack it is now, Presidents were protected and their private peccadilloes were kept from the public.
HYDE PARK ON THE HUDSON (M) has Bill Murray playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a pants man president who didn’t let polio hamper his hanky panky. Legs rendered useless didn’t dent a robust libido to which wife Eleanor turned a blind eye. His liaisons stretched from secretaries to a cousin twice removed, Daisy.
Richard Nelson’s marvelous script delicately juxtaposes the public and the private, and the domestic and the epic. The sweep of great events and the persuasive power of great personalities vie for a hand at the tiller of history.
In June 1939, England was on the cusp of war with Germany, and desperately needed US support. It was to help gain this support that the King and Queen were sent to America, and it was to help them with this cause that Roosevelt invited them to Hyde Park, the president’s country residence. But much of America needed convincing; the mood of the country was to stay out of another European war.
Add to this an historical (and understandable) American reticence toward British royalty and all things royal, exacerbated by the recent royal abdication of Edward VIII forced by his wish to marry not only a divorced woman (Wallis Simpson) but also, “Heaven forbid,” as it was perceived by the Brits, “an American, of all things.” The inexperienced and accidental King George VI, or Bertie, needed to show America he admired our country and its people, and respected us as equals. That was his mission. And Franklin Roosevelt gave him just such an opportunity –by serving him a hot dog!
The two stories – the affair with Daisy and the weekend with the King and Queen – are at the centre of our tale. The two stories become intertwined, each commenting upon the other; a woman painfully learns the truth behind the world -famous image of her lover, while a king learns to hide his insecurity and project courage.
The supporting cast is exemplary -OLIVIA WILLIAMS stoically sturdy as Eleanor Roosevelt ELIZABETH MARVEL marvelous as Missy, of and on mistress and secretary, OLIVIA COLMAN as the suspicious Queen Elizabeth, SAMUEL WEST as Bertie, and LAURA LINNEY as Daisy.
© Richard Cotter
