Little light shed on FDR’s dark side

TAKEN FOR A RIDE: President Franklin D Roosevelt (Murray) and his confidante Margaret Daisy Suckley (Linney).

HYDE PARK ON HUDSON

DIRECTOR: Roger Michell

CAST: Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Colman, Samuel West, Elizabeth Marvel, Elizabeth Wilson, Eleanor Bron and |Olivia Williams

CLASSIFICATION: 10PG

Running Time: 92 minutes

RATING: ***

This is one of those movies that could have been something totally different. But because of the light touch and the shifting focus of the script and the director, it treats what in contemporary times is viewed more harshly with too much delicacy.

You aren’t exactly sure in fact what the intentions of the script are. The sun around whom everyone turns, President Franklin D Roosevelt, is as at ease stealing hearts as he is in instilling confidence in a stuttering king who seems to be bullied by everyone around him. King George VI feels familiar because we feel we got to know him more than a little in The King’s Speech. FDR not so much.

Although what we are told about his lovelife is not unheard-of even today.

We learn about a wife and two mistresses on the side with probably more waiting down the line. What’s changed?

Men and power seem to have a magnetism that’s hard to resist. The only difference in today’s world with easy access to social media is that few can get away with those kinds of indiscretions.

The disturbing thing though filtering through the pastel colours and exquisite landscapes where some sordid sex scenes are played out, is that very little is made of the powerlessness of the women drawn into his world. Personally, I don’t know enough about Roosevelt to comment on his life as president or man and I’m not quite sure what the film is trying to say because of the way it plays out – almost like a romantic drama.

What confuses the issue is the cast and the delight in viewing their performances. Murray and Linney are enchanting in their roles as the president and his mousy cousin.

Murray is always a surprise in a more serious role. He plays Roosevelt with a light touch but as a man who knows the magnetism of his brute force – even when wheelchair bound. That makes him a more dangerous proposition, but this is never explored nor commented on.

That’s the difficult part because Linney on the other hand, is happy to hold his hand (and more) as long as she believes she plays a particular role in his rigorous life.

But of course she doesn’t. She is pushed aside with a carelessness that’s devastating as were women of that time, willing to play in the dark but never given a share of the light.

So while the darkness of FDR’s behaviour – the way he was ruled by women but rides roughshod over some – is never explored and while no comment is made about his dalliance and the impact it had on his role as leader of the free world, you cannot but smile at the bromance between two powerful men, the US president and the British monarch, both with their own physical impediments. And the cast, all of them, but especially Murray and Linney, hardly ever put a foot wrong.

So if you are able to put your morals aside and disregard the abusive behaviour, this could be fun.

If you liked Hysteria, you should enjoy this.