Critic Reviews

In beauty, tone, technical achievement and cinematic artistry on every level, Hyde Park on Hudson is a movie unto itself - funny, believable, historic and hugely entertaining.

This isn't a serious historical film. It plays different instruments than Spielberg's "Lincoln." Murray, who has a wider range than we sometimes realize, finds the human core of this FDR and presents it tenderly.

Murray and Linney are terrific together (and apart), their notes pitch perfect, and the supporting cast is good all around.

This hugely entertaining movie is about the wisdom and - with trenchant wit and sympathy - the human flaws in one of America's most idealized heads of state.

Half as long and twice as much fun as the self-important "Lincoln," Roger Michell's charming sex-and-politics comedy Hyde Park on Hudson is basically a frothy tabloid take on presidential history. And for my money, that's a good thing in a season filled with puffed-up prestige pictures.

As for Daisy, her inflated role is problematic. Although at the periphery of the action, the woman stands at the centre of the film, doubling as the compromised love interest and our voice-over narrator. But even Linney can't bring her to life.

Bill Murray as FDR? It takes a few minutes to get used to, but once he settles into the role of the 32nd president, the idiosyncratic comic actor does a wonderfully jaunty job of it in Hyde Park on Hudson.

Though he has competition, especially from the folks playing the visiting royals, Murray is very much the reason to see "Hyde Park."

It's never altogether clear why this visually blah and dramatically bland movie needed to be made at all (or why it wasn't made for television instead). The only answer I can come up with is that Murray wanted to show off with a cigarette-holder.

Unfortunately, the movie isn't a real success, as director Roger Michell ("Notting Hill") is both too ambitious in the story he tries to tell and not ambitious enough in the way he tells it.