Hyde Park On Hudson

The film is based on the private letters and journals of Margaret Suckley, aka Daisy (Laura Linney), a distant cousin of Franklin D Roosevelt (Bill Murray), with whom she had a close relationship - though the film remains a little coy about just how close. The story centres on a visit by King George VI (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) to FDR's eponymous New York estate. It is as sweet and charming as it could be with a protagonist who is a serial philanderer. Murray is very mannered, which works, but the usually excellent Linney is strangely bland. Some details strike a chord, such as photographers who keep their cameras down as FDR, who was crippled with polio, is carried to his car. But it feels as if the film-makers have taken a great moment in history and, by attempting to examine the human element behind it, have lost sight of it. The result is a drama that is inoffensive and insubstantial.