The Lost King

I went to see this movie on a whim not knowing much about it at all. I vaguely remembered the story appearing in the news some years ago. Sally Hawkins turns in a moving performance as Philippa Langley. The inclusion of her "visions" of Kind Richard could have been badly handled but here it lends both humour and pathos and its a nice touch. This movie was an unexpected pleasure and brought a tear to my eye more than once. Philippa's passion is inspiring and this is as much a story of the woman herself as it is about the discovery of Kind Richard.

It is clear that the writers take much creative licence with the story, which appears to take place in a matter on months but no doubt took years of research in reality. This kind of thing is to be expected with any dramatisation of reality. I'm sure the University of Leicester will have a lot more issue with the creative licence taken than I do as they don't come out of it looking at all good! However, the story is told from the perspective of Philippa Langley, and having since watched some real footage following the discovery of King Richards remains, it is clear to see she was sidelined and undermined and so it is nice to see her side of the story.

Recommended!!

Sally Hawkins turns in an enthusiastic performance here as the determined Philippa Langley. Separated from her husband (Steve Coogan), she is sort of at the end of her tether when she takes her young son to see a stage version of Shakespeare's "Richard III". Taken with the tragedy of that story, she joins the local "Ricardians" and soon determines that this particular historical figure has had a bit of a bad press, and so she sets out to try and track down the hitherto unidentified location of his corpse. It's based on a true story, so we know what actually happened but the drama offered here is still quite engaging as she has to convince the powers that be to allow her to dig up their car park, then try to fend off their collective claims of success before the ultimate battle to get the man buried with some semblance of his real life status and is enjoyable to watch, especially once her adventure begins in earnest. Then together with archaeological lead Mark Addy and some spiritual assistance from Harry Lloyd's spectral version of this final Plantaget King - who, along with his horse - seems keen to help her from the grave, this film moves along entertainingly. It certainly doesn't need to be seen at the cinema, and It's a bit of a slow burn to begin with, but overall I quite enjoyed it.

Years ago I read Josephine Tey's fine book The Daughter of Time and was blown away by what it had to say. Shakespeare's Richard III is a vivid and effective drama and just about all that most people have heard about this short-lived king, but historically it's almost as far as you can get from the truth. This 'monster' version of Richard was a hatchet job by Henry Tudor (Henry VII), who killed and deposed him and then made sure to blacken his memory. The reality is that Richard was a forward-thinking and pretty benevolent ruler in an unfortunately violent time. Historians have known this for quite a while, but what was not known was what happened to his remains.

So The Lost King is all about that latter mystery and the persistence of writer and amateur historian Philippa Langley leading to the discovery of Richard III's remains under a Leicester parking lot. The main drama consists of the many obstacles she dealt with, as well as the post-discovery attempts by The Authorities to sideline her and hog the credit. It's all very watchable and engaging. Sally Hawkins is predictably excellent as Philiipa, and Steve Coogan (who was also a co-producer and guiding force behind the production) and Mark Addy have nice supporting roles. In a somewhat surreal and unexpected touch, Harry Lloyd plays Richard's ghost, whom Philippa finds she can converse with. All in all, worth seeing!

And -- it's kind of hard to blame Shakespeare. His job was to create great theater, and it would have been more than dangerous for him to put anything on stage that was critical of Queen Elizabeth's grandfather (Henry VII himself).

Not exactly 15 minutes of fame but I won a berth in the cathedral at Richard's reinterment. As a result I was very excited about this film and it really was a wonderful movie with Sally Hawkins and Steve Coogan portraying these recent events with sensitivity and class. I liked the use of Richard's ghost to enhance the storytelling and the use of poetic licence did not damage the integrity of what happened. Visually, the sets were accurate and all the main characters are represented. Although I would liked to have seen the addition of Michael Ibsen who provided the DNA proof. But as a film about a topical story, it was a lovely satisfying movie.

All in all The Lost King was a very watchable film, With great performances from Sally Hawkin's and a very restrained Steve Coogan.

But I would recommend watching The king in the car Park documentary afterwards as this really has more hard facts regarding the excavation of King Richards body. Philippa Langley wasn't exactly ignored or used by Leicester university.

She was in fact very much the public face of the dig and research. In fact the documentary presented by Simon Farnaby who's presence is pretty much absent from the film puts Philippa front and centre, and it also shows that her personnel emotions were sometimes getting in the way of the actual work.

The one thing the Lost king does well is explain Phillipa's mental state as in the said documentary she seemed over emotional, but I had no Idea about her ME and depression. The film also has a great idea of showing Philippa's relationship with her imaginary King Richard and her obsession with finding him.

The Lost King is a good film, I just wish they hadn't exaggerated the academic villainy and given a little more credit where credit was due.. This isn't Hollywood this is the UK.