Great romanticized drama with too little historical fact

Rating: 4/10 (31 December 2019)

This film is gorgeously filmed, gritty, and haunting as DRAMA. Unfortunately, it suffers much of the same historical inaccuracies that plague many recent films of its genre.
Much has already been said about the goofs in the staging of the battle at Agincourt, and I won't bother to reiterate those.
What I find much worse is the casting and characterization of both King Henrys, and Catherine of Valois. Thimothée Chalomet gives a wonderful turn as Henry V- as he would have been at least 7-10 years BEFORE Agincourt. At the time of the battle, Henry V was 24 - NOT a boy, especially in those times. But issues with Catherine are worse. She was 15 YEARS younger than Henry, and casting and characterizing her as his contemporary is a ludicrous as the casting of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII in "The Tudors" - but that's a separate gripe. And Catherine of Valois was a royal princess trained from birth to prepare for and accept her role in the Royal Marriage Game. No matter how she felt about her husband, she would NEVER have spoken to him as was depicted in The King, ESPECIALLY given the difference in their REAL ages. A) she would have known better and b) he would not have tolerated such words from her. Henry V was notorious for his insensitivity and intolerance for criticism. All the contextual errors means that that final, touching scene where Catherine and Henry "get each other" is probably even MORE inaccurate than the omission of the stakes in the ground that protected the archers in the REAL battle of Agincourt. Oh, and Ben Mendelsohn is tragically wasted as Henry IV. Mendelsohn is fine talent, but his mumbling and lurking beneath filthy hair do no justice to either the role or the actor.