Universal Excuses

A rare Bill Murray-heavy film to not be driven by an auteur’s distinct voice or Garfield’s love of lasagna, Hyde Park on Hudson is an adaptation of a BBC radio play about a weekend of monarch-meeting and wild, wild cousin love for noted cousin-lover/president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, played by Murray. The film comes from Notting Hill director Roger Michell, and dramatizes the true story of the weekend King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the main characters from The King’s Speech, for those whose history is mostly informed by Colin Firth) visiting FDR’s upstate New York cottage. It was also, notably, the weekend FDR supposedly decided his relative (Laura Linney) was lookin’ all-right, and got a little something going on the side with her.

Hyde Park‘s end-of-year release date, inclusion of a beloved actor doing a historical impression, and underlying resonance of King’s Speech stuttering have already made the film a presumptive competitor in the next Oscar race, but this first trailer almost seems to shrug that off, playing like a light-hearted, trifling romantic-comedy-of-manners. Regardless, Murray seems as likable as always, even when doing an FDR voice, and it’s a joy to see him once again alongside Olivia Williams and channeling his frustrations into scotch and cannonballs. Your brain’s Rushmore center will be extremely stimulated.
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