Avis Metacritic

In beauty, tone, technical achievement and cinematic artistry on every level, Hyde Park on Hudson is a movie unto itself - funny, believable, historic and hugely entertaining.

Bill Murray as FDR? It takes a few minutes to get used to, but once he settles into the role of the 32nd president, the idiosyncratic comic actor does a wonderfully jaunty job of it in Hyde Park on Hudson.

Sometimes a film takes your breath away by dint of its brilliance. Sometimes it's on account of its ineptitude. And just occasionally, it's for its shamelessness. Hyde Park on Hudson, for all its captivating shots of cornfields and estimable performances, is the latter.

More a "King's Speech" footnote than a sequel, Park only flies when Bill's centre stage. We're curious to see how it fares against "Lincoln," the award season's other presidential hopeful.

A competent period costume drama, this intimate character study is light as air - and probably more suited to Masterpiece Theatre than as a major theatrical release.

Hyde Park could have been fawningly ponderous; that it's merely an airy trifle puts it a cut above the usual Oscar bait.

For stretches of the film, he (Murray) is enough to recommend Hyde Park on Hudson, especially as he toys with his houseguests, England's King George (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman).

The film is perceptive and shrewd about such matters as the awkwardness of two kinds of aristocracy and power brought face to face. But "Hyde Park" never catches fire.

The filmmakers bite off far more than they're able to chew, resulting in an odd blend of touched-upon topics.

Roger Michell's movie is, pretty consistently, dreadful.