‘A king has no friends. Only followers and foe...’
I’m still unconvinced by Timothée Chalamet as a leading man. I never caught Call Me by Your Name. I found Beautiful Boy to be massively overrated. Dune I didn’t enjoy. And the less said about Don’t Look Up the better. And sure enough, while he is solid in David Michod’s historical drama The King, he is upstaged by the excellent supporting cast…
Following the death of his father, King Henry IV (Ben Mendelsohn), Henry V (Chalamet) becomes King of England. Guided by his right-hand man Falstaff (Joel Edgerton) and his trusted advisor William (Sean Harris), young Henry decides to invade France. The invasion leads to the Battle of Agincourt. The rest, dear reader, is history.
I will say that Chalamet is good here. Convincing even. Although he fares better as a drunken layabout than as a leader of men (although his big pre-battle speech is well delivered). The problem is that every time Edgerton or Harris enter the frame, they utterly dominate. Harris is an old hand in this kind of role and he is slippery and beady-eyed and everything we have come to expect from one of Britain’s most talented actors. Edgerton as Falstaff is a revelation, however. This is a glimpse into what Game of Thrones could have been were the cast a little more talented (I’m looking at you, Kit Harrington).
Michod, working from a script he co-wrote with Edgerton, expertly builds tension leading up to the sensational climatic battle sequence, and perhaps the highest compliment I can pay The King is that even at 2 hours and 20 minutes, I could have had an extra half an hour – such is the power of Michod’s excellent dialogue and his talented cast.
Whether The King is historically accurate or not, or how much it follows Shakespeare’s historical plays I do not know, nor do I care, what isn’t in doubt is that this is an entertaining and compelling drama. A success.