Dark and gritty take on Shakespeare

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2019)

The King is a suitably dark and gritty adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad play's, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V. Avoiding the warlike triumphalism of some of the previous adaptations, King Henry V is portrayed here as a reluctant monarch and quiet pacifist forced into a war he doesn't want. The film is probably more accurate to actual history than the sanitised version presented in Shakespeare's plays. The battle scenes are bloody, brutal and dirty. The key battle of Agincourt is presented as a muddy quagmire of hand to hand combat rather than the heroic battle of legend. The film shows the brutal reality of medieval warfare and ultimately its futility.
Timothee Chalamet as Henry V and Joel Edgerton as Falstaff both put in strong performances while there are good cameos from Robert Pattinson, Ben Mendelssohn and Lily-Rose Depp. And the film is visually impressive.
The one downside are the accents. French-American actor Timothee Chalamet struggles with the English accent while English actor Robert Pattinson makes a laughable attempt at a French accent in playing The Dauphin. One can't help but wonder if they might have been better off switching roles.