Critic Reviews

Its intent is to show us how difficult it is to see clearly during times of crisis, how what seems as simple as black and white today was the source of uncertainty and soul-searching when it happened.

What is unusual about the film is that it is a frankly admiring portrait of a monarch. The king here is the tale’s hero, and the choice he makes regarding the Nazi invasion undergird a drama that is proudly and unequivocally patriotic.

Haakon VII is a hero in Norway, and The King’s Choice tells us why.

Handsomely mounted and well acted, the film breaks no new ground but remains engrossing.

The film is handsomely mounted, traditional in its scenecraft, superbly acted, and much less ham-handed than you might expect from a historical drama about a great man’s great moment.

It has a few traumatic and bedazzling scenes of combat, but mostly it’s about the backroom bureaucratic gamesmanship of war.

The King’s Choice maintains a sense of intrigue when it sticks to the king’s dealings with the government, but the movie drags when it moves outside of back rooms and deviates from setting up the Bräuer-Haakon showdown.

The performances are fine and nuanced, but the stakes seem, for some reason, more theoretical than actual.