Chandler’s Trailers: “Hyde Park on Hudson” (2012)

        There are some films which require volumes to plumb the depths of meaning, the layers of artistry; while the quality (or lack thereof) of others is easily dissembled with the brevity of a footnote. “Hyde Park on Hudson” is of the latter variety, a film devised of such an incomprehensible level of badness one might best accompany the footnote with a covering heavy sock and an Odor Eater. In a move which prizes eccentricity (no matter how preposterously conceived) over fidelity to historical truth-  or even a modicum of dramatic logic  -Richard Nelson’s crazy quilt of a screenplay defines the figures involved in an important international meeting-  King George VI (the first sitting British monarch to visit the United States), Queen Elizabeth and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bill Murray proving that much, if not all of his reputation as a budding dramatic actor is the result of sycophantic groveling by late nite talk show hosts) -as caricature of editorial cartoon grotesques: either as limp-minded  emotionally feeble aristocrats or a sexually predatory Mama’s boy (FDR’s personality profile-  as presented  -rather resembles a Norman Bates with wheelchair and cigarette holder) who just happen to be the heads of state empowered to resist history’s greatest push to fascist rule.

To read the complete review, click the following link to:  https://chandlerswainreviews.wordpress.com/chandlers-trailers-short-bits-for-emerging-cinephiles-and-a-better-america/