HYDE PARK ON HUDSON: Murray's FDR is DOA

HYDE PARK ON THE HUDSON possesses all the elements necessary to make a memorable and enjoyable movie. It's got a fascinating and charismatic central character, an intriguing true story, and a great cast.
Unfortunately director Roger Michell fails to pull the parts together to create a satisfying whole.
The end product is flat and unrewarding with an undertone of humour that mostly misfires.

The story focuses on the affair between President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his fifth cousin Daisy Stuckley, which was conducted under the nose of Mrs Roosevelt at the family home of Hyde Park on the Hudson River in upstate New York. Most of the action centres on the summer weekend in 1939 when the President hosted the new (and young) British monarch, King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth at Hyde Park.
Daisy (Laura Linney) is the amused observer of the turmoil the Royal visit inflicts on the Roosevelt household, and of her lover's determination to democratise the stuffy and traditional King by feeding him hot dogs at a picnic.
Roosevelt was one of America's most influential and charismatic Presidents, a man who changed the course of history by force of personality, but if Bill Murray's impression of him is your first introduction to the great man you'll be hardpressed to understand what all the fuss is about. Murray plays him mostly as a bon viveur with an eye for a pretty lady, but not much else. There's little indication of the visionary and master political operator who moved the United States from sleeping giant to world superpower status in less than a decade.
Murray fails the most basic test in neither looking nor sounding like the man, and it smacks of stunt casting to have a comedian who made his name in 'Ghostbusters'. 'Caddyshack' and 'Stripes' playing FDR. I'm certainly not arguing against an actor's right to grow and take on parts different to those which originally made them famous. Murray has amply demonstrated his range and versatility in films like 'Lost In Translation' and 'Broken Flowers' but I'm not convinced he's convincing as a real-life President.
Ironically, it's not Murray - the famous comedian - who provides most of the film's humour but British actors Samuel West and Olivia Colman as George and Elizabeth. The Royal couple were still finding their feet on this now famous first visit to the USA, but they won a lot of friends and helped cement the 'special relationship, between Britain and the USA which proved essential in determining victory in World War II. So it's more than a little baffling that director Michell has chosen to portray them as a couple of chinless, clueless aristocratic buffoons. Other than the stutter, West's King George bears no relation to Colin Firth's magnificent, Oscar winning interpretation in 'The King's Speech.'
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON is a wasted opportunity. It fails to engage as a drama, a comedy or a dramedy, and exudes no real sense of the historical importance of the characters or events it portrays. This is lazy superficial history telling and all involved deserve better.