The Back Row

Netflix’s The King (dir. David Michôd, 2019) is an adaptation several plays in William Shakespeare’s “Henriad” (Henry IV, Parts 1, 2, and Henry V). I haven’t read these plays yet myself, and some of my colleagues felt that the Henry IV story arc is a bit abbreviated and short, although I was glad to see Henry IV go – he’s intentionally meant to be standoffish and unpleasant. It’s a visually stunning film, with a very Game of Thrones aesthetic – the brutal, stark, unromantic battle scenes, such as the one between Henry V and Henry Hotspur, where you can hear the brutality of steel against flesh, and the crushing of bodies and grunting of two men fighting to the death. Timothée Chalamet stars as Henry V, and his transformation through the film (which I think is a very enjoyable 140 minutes – I was engaged and enthralled the whole time) is remarkable. He begins as a bored, lazy prince who has no desire to ascend to the throne, but by the film’s end, he is a competent, capable, and cunning strategist, war leader, and king who has vanquished most of his enemies, if not all. And there are enemies abound, even in his own home. Dean Charles-Chapman, who plays his sniveling brother Thomas, is also recognizable from his role as Tommen Baratheon in Game of Thrones, and he is almost as useless in this movie!