The Lost King

I have been interested in Richard 111 eversince i saw Laurence Oliviers performance in the film in 1956. In May of this year i drove up to Leicester to visit first the Battle Of Bosworth field and museum and then to the modern museum in the city centre. So i was always going to like this film.

I could empathise with the main character as i also suffer from me or as its now known chronic fatigue syndrome.

It was a story worth telling and particularly to highlight the sterling work of Phillipa Langley. Who it would appear to have been sidelined by others,who are now complaining at their depiction in this film,notwithstanding the fact that they now have a spanking new museum which is bringing people like myself to go and visit Leicester.

For me this was one of the most enjoyable films that i have seen this year.

Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins) is a divorced middle-aged mother of two boys. Her boss sucks. Her ex-husband John Langley (Steve Coogan) has a girlfriend. Nobody treats her seriously. She becomes obsessed with Richard III and even has visions of the dead King. She is frustrated with the popular image of the King as an evil troll cemented by the Shakespeare play. She goes on a journey to find the Lost King and maybe of self-discovery.

Sally Hawkins is the Queen of the meek mousy woman with an inner fire. I can't think of another actress who is a better fit for this role. It's the classic underdog character and apparently it's a true story. The story is pretty simple and very standard. Sally makes this sing.

All in all The Lost King was a very watchable film, With great performances from Sally Hawkin's and a very restrained Steve Coogan.

But I would recommend watching The king in the car Park documentary afterwards as this really has more hard facts regarding the excavation of King Richards body. Philippa Langley wasn't exactly ignored or used by Leicester university.

She was in fact very much the public face of the dig and research. In fact the documentary presented by Simon Farnaby who's presence is pretty much absent from the film puts Philippa front and centre, and it also shows that her personnel emotions were sometimes getting in the way of the actual work.

The one thing the Lost king does well is explain Phillipa's mental state as in the said documentary she seemed over emotional, but I had no Idea about her ME and depression. The film also has a great idea of showing Philippa's relationship with her imaginary King Richard and her obsession with finding him.

The Lost King is a good film, I just wish they hadn't exaggerated the academic villainy and given a little more credit where credit was due.. This isn't Hollywood this is the UK.

No heroes wearing tights. No high action fight scenes. No car chases. No laser guns. Therefore, the people who should be watching this gem of a film, will not ... unfortunately. Sally Hawkins reminds us (again) that acting can be art. Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope, and Michael Jones deliver a touching screenplay. I loved this film. I was especially drawn to the plot line that we often unfairly define people by their physical shortcomings instead of their strength of character. We would all be better humans if more films such as "The Lost King" were made. See this film. And for criminy sakes, get your teenagers to watch it.

Sally Hawkins turns in an enthusiastic performance here as the determined Philippa Langley. Separated from her husband (Steve Coogan), she is sort of at the end of her tether when she takes her young son to see a stage version of Shakespeare's "Richard III". Taken with the tragedy of that story, she joins the local "Ricardians" and soon determines that this particular historical figure has had a bit of a bad press, and so she sets out to try and track down the hitherto unidentified ___location of his corpse. It's based on a true story, so we know what actually happened but the drama offered here is still quite engaging as she has to convince the powers that be to allow her to dig up their car park, then try to fend off their collective claims of success before the ultimate battle to get the man buried with some semblance of his real life status and is enjoyable to watch, especially once her adventure begins in earnest. Then together with archaeological lead Mark Addy and some spiritual assistance from Harry Lloyd's spectral version of this final Plantaget King - who, along with his horse - seems keen to help her from the grave, this film moves along entertainingly. It certainly doesn't need to be seen at the cinema, and It's a bit of a slow burn to begin with, but overall I quite enjoyed it.