The King ★★★★
THE compelling period drama The King is David Michod’s best film since the Australian director rose to prominence with Animal Kingdom almost a decade ago.
This time the story of intense family intrigue, bitter power struggles, vengeful betrayal and bloody murder is set in 15th Century England.
Michod not only shoots the film with a fine balance of brute force and careful craft, he also co-wrote the screenplay with fellow Australian Joel Edgerton, adapting and combining three Shakespearian works.
So skillful is their writing, in both brevity and rhythm, it manages to command the audience’s close attention for every scene.
And what a collection of enigmatic performances they elicit from a cast that includes some of modern cinema’s edgiest and individualistic actors including Timothee Chalamet, Sean Harris, Robert Pattinson, Ben Mendelsohn and Edgerton himself.
The film manages to rise above other recent and similar films thanks, of course, to the twists and turns courtesy of the source material but also Michod’s willingness to let each scene and confrontation play out to a complete and dramatic conclusion.
While it’s as masculine a film as you can get, in keeping with the surprises in the narrative it is a female character that delivers the final killer blow through soft questioning overlying menacing undertones.
The action sequences are impressively staged and viscerally executed, including a fist fight in full armour and a final, extended, mud-drenched, chaotic depiction of the Battle of Agincourt
The gifted Chalamee makes it three great performances in a row (Beautiful Boy, 2018 and Call Me By Your Name, 2017), as young Hal, Henry V, who has the responsibility of the crown and the nation’s future thrust upon him following the death of his father, another scowling, scene-stealing turn from Mendelsohn.
In trying to end civil war through reconciliation, Henry is drawn into conflict with the Church and war with the French, desperately trying to hold on to the principles that initially made him a humanist and promising leader of the people but also push his surrender to self-doubts and self-preservation at all costs.
Sean Harris as Henry’s chief adviser William is also excellent, giving one of the best performances of his formidable and criminally under-rated career.
While there is a lot of intense dialogue to follow, the interior scenes are framed and lit in a manner that totally focuses your attention on the actors and their delivery. The script retains its power while distilling the language to a closer, modern sensibility.
Also worthy of note is the music score by Nicholas Britell (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), Adam Arkapaw’s cinematography (who also shot fellow Australian Justin Kurzel’s stunning version of Macbeth in 2015), and the battle sequence staging under the second unit direction of Nash Edgerton, stuntman and brother of Joel.
I was fortunate to see The King at a cinema but it will only have a limited run due to the fact it is a Netflix production.
But that also means it will be very easy to see one of the best films of 2019.