Tricky Dick
Stephen Frears files down his satirical edges for a straight-ahead, earnest true-life history drama.
The Lost King
Directors: Stephen Frears • Writers: Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope, based on the book by Philippa Langley and Michael Jones
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Steve Coogan, Mark Addy, Harry Lloyd, Lee Ingleby, James Fleet, Bruce Fummey, Amanda Abbington, Helen Katamba, Adam Robb, Benjamin Scanlan
UK • 1hr 47mins
Opens Hong Kong March 30 • IIA
Grade: B-
It’s the late ’90s in Edinburgh, and Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins, Paddington), undervalued at work, wrangling two sons while co-parenting with her ex-husband John (the indomitable comic writer Steve Coogan) and suffering with ME – chronic fatigue – has reached the end of her rope. Philippa’s lost a well-deserved promotion to a younger, less capable, blonder woman and she has to suck it thanks to her and John now running two households. They need her salary. A performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III sparks an obsession with the widely derided royal (thanks to Tudor propaganda), and also sparks her search for his body and a broader rehabilitation of his image as a usurper and child killer. She quits her job, and with encouragement from a barfly called Hamish (Bruce Fummey) at the Richard III Society (a real thing!) does just that.
Stephen Frears (The Queen, Victoria & Abdul) who might possibly the UK’s most English director even when he’s not being English, dispenses with the flourishes of Dangerous Liaisons and the skeevy ambition of the Lance Armstrong biopic The Program for a painfully mainstream – except for its flights into fantasy, possibly psychosis – dramatisation of the real life events that got a university into a tizzy (“Waaaah! That’s not how it happened! We did stuff too! Waaaah!” but I’m paraphrasing) and demonstrated, yet again, how women get shafted in the professional sphere. It doesn’t have the quiet poetry or satirical edge Frears often tosses around. It’s nice… and most of us prefer Frears when he’s not quite this nice.
Clearly, he has a horse
Philippa is also encouraged by King Richard III (Viserys Targaryen himself, Harry Lloyd), who appears to her as a sort of apparition, either a figment of an overactive imagination or a fracturing mind, it’s unclear. Probably the former given the film’s generally upbeat tone. Eventually, after a fair amount of amateur research at her own expense she floats the idea of KRIII’s resting place – a Leicester carpark – to Richard Buckley at the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (Robert Baratheon himself, Mark Addy). He likes the idea, so does the City, but the first dig is a bust. Not one to give up, Hamish and the Society suggest crowdfunding an extension of the excavation and, heeding Philippa’s gut instincts, they hit paydirt. It’s here that the U of L’s squirrelly deputy registrar, Richard Taylor (Lee Ingleby) changes his dismissive tune and turns the discovery into a coup for the university, a boon for the city and a media circus. Or at least as circusy as the press gets about the bones of dead kings.
The Lost King could have been a scorching take-down of how women are sidelined (DNA discoverer Rosalind Franklin, wifi inventor Hedy Lamarr, all the women in Hidden Figures... I’ll stop now) and/or have their work appropriated by more powerful men (this is based on Langley’s book). It should be noted that Langley was granted an MBE for her work but Buckley got an OBE, the far more prestigious of the meaningless titles. Oh, he got an honorary PhD too. Frears uses the closing frames to highlight this discrepancy; the intercutting of Philippa walking into a modest public school to address a class of 20-odd girls while Buckley strolls the hallowed wood and velvet-decked halls of academia to address a audience of hundreds, cameras flashing says a lot. That’s about the extent of the deeper thinking.
Frears and writers Coogan and Jeff Pope keep what is a remarkable story feeling movie-of-the-week and focus on Philippa’s private pursuit of vindication and validation for both herself and KRIII. There’s nothing wrong with that; she earned the right to be impressed with herself, and Hawkins keeps the entire affair from slipping into inanity, with a great assist from Coogan (nice to see a divorced couple that isn’t at war). But that focus turns the film into a whimsical comedy-drama about chasing your dreams and believing in yourself (god, this again) when a deeper discussion of whose word becomes law, and how, is. Right. There. Philippa’s marginalisation is the embodiment of “History is written by the victors,” but The Lost King seems uninterested in unpacking that credo. Pretty sure KRIII would have thoughts on that. — DEK