Hyde Park on Hudson attempts to tell two stories concerning Franklin Roosevelt's visits to Hyde Park, where he shared a house with his mother, and had a separate cottage set up for visits with lady friends, and where he had as overnight guests in 1939, England's King George and Elizabeth, the Queen Consort.
Bill Murray does a fine job presenting a Roosevelt that was witty and clever, yet scheming and manipulative as well. Laura Linney as Daisy seems to be the real star, narrating and telling about her relationship with the President, who is a distant cousin. The film begins with her narrating how she was asked, out of the blue, to come see him—she lived nearby, and how he started showing her his stamp collection, then took her for car rides in his specially designed car that had hand controls for everything so FDR could drive himself.
They roar through the countryside. We see flowers and hills and, with the title being Hyde Park on Hudson, we look in vain for the Hudson River. It isn't there because the entire movie was filmed in England. I learn from other IMDb sources that the Roosevelt homes portrayed look nothing like the real life buildings either. That's O.K., Bill Murray didn't look too much like FDR anyhow.
After seeing a hint that Daisy's relationship was perhaps turning physical with the president, the storyline leaves this to focus on the visit, four years after Daisy started meeting with her cousin, of the royal couple of the United Kingdom.
In real life, they met the president in Washington and journeyed with him to Hyde Park, where they stayed overnight and tried to get him to commit to helping Britain in the coming war. Of course, the president committed to nothing, and Europe was at war for well over 2 years before we joined. One wonders, had our presidential elections been in 1938 and 1942, if Roosevelt would have gotten us involved shortly after the 1939 invasion of Poland. His reelection of 1940 was surely the main reason why he wasn't about to get us into a war right before that happened.
In the film, the royal couple provide many of the small laughs, as they discuss differences in American and English customs, particularly the planned menu of hot dogs at the picnic. Elizabeth seemed so aghast at this delicacy, you would think she believe they were actually made of dog meat. They see FDR with another of his mistresses, outside the house from their upstairs window, and they just smile and wave.
At the "picnic" we see Murray carried across the grounds to his table, which is, more or less, on the porch, not the grass. My trouble here was that this was in full view of well over a hundred people at tables spread all across the lawn. I know he was carried to places at times, but my understanding was that whenever there were people around who weren't in his inner circle, he arranged to avoid having them see that he needed to be carried like a small boy.
Because he had learned Daisy was offended at not being invited to the big dinner the night before, he made sure to invite her to sit right beside him at the picnic. The film even shows Daisy putting mustard on the king's hot dog. I have learned that in real life, she couldn't have put the mustard on for the king because she was sitting two tables away from them.
The film definitely picked up when the royal guests arrive. Before that, we had the tedious scenes of FDR showing his stamps to Daisy and chatting about nothing as he drove her around. I thought the first 25 minutes or so were quite boring.
But since the scenes with the royal couple were not at all close to reality, and nothing was really accomplished other than the vague renewal of friendship between the two nations, I cannot see why this film was made.
From various sources, the portrayal of King George and Elizabeth was not very close to their personalities in any way. The king was just 13 years younger than our president, yet FDR kept treating him as though he were old enough to be his father. It seemed like a ploy to make it seem like it was our president whose wise counsel enabled King George to be bold enough to achieve all that he did in his reign as king.
The entire Daisy story was an utter bore. Apparently the diaries she left behind, published as a book and studied by historians, do not claim any kind of sexual relationship with FDR, as is suggested by the film. Her character in the film is totally uninteresting. We learn nothing about her life away from her visits with the president, other than that she lives with an aunt and takes care of her. Her big dramatic scene comes when she learns that the president has, at least one, other mistress. We are given to feel sorry for her because she feels hurt to learn that the married man with whom she is having an affair, has another woman he's seeing? Critics claim the movie's two stories made it unfocused. I agree. We saw no political maneuvering of FDR, no dealing with his work while at Hyde Park. We got no glimpses of his plans for reelection, or what he thought needed to happen for us to become involved in the war. If we weren't to learn about real historical events, and weren't really seeing characters portrayed realistically, what was the point?
Bill Murray does a fine job presenting a Roosevelt that was witty and clever, yet scheming and manipulative as well. Laura Linney as Daisy seems to be the real star, narrating and telling about her relationship with the President, who is a distant cousin. The film begins with her narrating how she was asked, out of the blue, to come see him—she lived nearby, and how he started showing her his stamp collection, then took her for car rides in his specially designed car that had hand controls for everything so FDR could drive himself.
They roar through the countryside. We see flowers and hills and, with the title being Hyde Park on Hudson, we look in vain for the Hudson River. It isn't there because the entire movie was filmed in England. I learn from other IMDb sources that the Roosevelt homes portrayed look nothing like the real life buildings either. That's O.K., Bill Murray didn't look too much like FDR anyhow.
After seeing a hint that Daisy's relationship was perhaps turning physical with the president, the storyline leaves this to focus on the visit, four years after Daisy started meeting with her cousin, of the royal couple of the United Kingdom.
In real life, they met the president in Washington and journeyed with him to Hyde Park, where they stayed overnight and tried to get him to commit to helping Britain in the coming war. Of course, the president committed to nothing, and Europe was at war for well over 2 years before we joined. One wonders, had our presidential elections been in 1938 and 1942, if Roosevelt would have gotten us involved shortly after the 1939 invasion of Poland. His reelection of 1940 was surely the main reason why he wasn't about to get us into a war right before that happened.
In the film, the royal couple provide many of the small laughs, as they discuss differences in American and English customs, particularly the planned menu of hot dogs at the picnic. Elizabeth seemed so aghast at this delicacy, you would think she believe they were actually made of dog meat. They see FDR with another of his mistresses, outside the house from their upstairs window, and they just smile and wave.
At the "picnic" we see Murray carried across the grounds to his table, which is, more or less, on the porch, not the grass. My trouble here was that this was in full view of well over a hundred people at tables spread all across the lawn. I know he was carried to places at times, but my understanding was that whenever there were people around who weren't in his inner circle, he arranged to avoid having them see that he needed to be carried like a small boy.
Because he had learned Daisy was offended at not being invited to the big dinner the night before, he made sure to invite her to sit right beside him at the picnic. The film even shows Daisy putting mustard on the king's hot dog. I have learned that in real life, she couldn't have put the mustard on for the king because she was sitting two tables away from them.
The film definitely picked up when the royal guests arrive. Before that, we had the tedious scenes of FDR showing his stamps to Daisy and chatting about nothing as he drove her around. I thought the first 25 minutes or so were quite boring.
But since the scenes with the royal couple were not at all close to reality, and nothing was really accomplished other than the vague renewal of friendship between the two nations, I cannot see why this film was made.
From various sources, the portrayal of King George and Elizabeth was not very close to their personalities in any way. The king was just 13 years younger than our president, yet FDR kept treating him as though he were old enough to be his father. It seemed like a ploy to make it seem like it was our president whose wise counsel enabled King George to be bold enough to achieve all that he did in his reign as king.
The entire Daisy story was an utter bore. Apparently the diaries she left behind, published as a book and studied by historians, do not claim any kind of sexual relationship with FDR, as is suggested by the film. Her character in the film is totally uninteresting. We learn nothing about her life away from her visits with the president, other than that she lives with an aunt and takes care of her. Her big dramatic scene comes when she learns that the president has, at least one, other mistress. We are given to feel sorry for her because she feels hurt to learn that the married man with whom she is having an affair, has another woman he's seeing? Critics claim the movie's two stories made it unfocused. I agree. We saw no political maneuvering of FDR, no dealing with his work while at Hyde Park. We got no glimpses of his plans for reelection, or what he thought needed to happen for us to become involved in the war. If we weren't to learn about real historical events, and weren't really seeing characters portrayed realistically, what was the point?