If you told me that you were making yet another movie about British royalty, I’d probably attempt to fit a scone and entire tea set up your ass. If you told me that same movie starred Bill Murray as FDR, well, the tea set would be a lost cause at that point, but I’d probably feel pretty bad about it.
In June 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Academy Award nominee Bill Murray) and his wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams) host the King and Queen of England (Samuel West and Olivia Colman) for a weekend at the Roosevelt home at Hyde Park on Hudson, in upstate New York – the first-ever visit of a reigning English monarch to America. With Britain facing imminent war with Germany, the Royals are desperately looking to FDR for support. But international affairs must be juggled with the complexities of FDR’s domestic establishment, as wife, mother, and mistresses all conspire to make the royal weekend an unforgettable one. Seen through the eyes of Daisy (Academy Award nominee Laura Linney), Franklin’s neighbor and intimate, the weekend will produce not only a special relationship between two great nations, but, for Daisy – and through her, for us all – a deeper understanding of the mysteries of love and friendship. Opens December 7th.[FocusFeatures]
Okay fine, but if anyone stutters or gets diction lessons, I swear to God I’m walking out.
And now you know where the expression “feed the queen a hot dog” comes from. Anyway, I’m intrigued, but I’m curious as to how they’re going to spin the ending. “The King and the President became great friends, and their countries immediately became allies*.”
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*Two and a half years later, and only after the Japanese attacked.