The Lost King

Year 17, Day 15 - 1/15/25 - Movie #4,915

BEFORE: Before I get started, an almost-but-one-day-off Birthday SHOUT-out to actor Mark Addy, born January 14, 1964. Well, I could say that I started watching this film late on January 14, so of course that counts. Being just one day off is pretty good, too. 

I remember when this story made the news a few years ago, if you remember that too then that's a pretty big SPOILER ALERT for this film, namely whether the remains of King Richard III were found or not.  Hmm, I don't think reporters would write a news story about them NOT being found, hint hint. 

Steve Coogan carries over from "Despicable Me 4". I'll admit I was way off again, going in to this one, I naturally assumed that Coogan would play King Richard, either in flashbacks or on stage, but no, he's too old.  Richard III apparently died at the age of 32, and plus I saw a trailer for this film, I should have noticed that it wasn't him playing the king. Still, my brain wanted to remember it that way, stupid brain. 

THE PLOT: An amateur historian defies the stodgy academic establishment in her efforts to find King Richard III's remains, which were lost for over 500 years. 

AFTER: Steve Coogan plays John, the ex-husband of Philippa Langley, but he's always over at the house because they're co-parenting two boys, so they maintain an amicable relationship while he dates someone new, and money's tight because together they have to pay for two residences. Clearly there's a story there about why they're no longer married, but the film doesn't really get into it, whether it's him or her or both of them or they fought over money or one was unfaithful, so I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?  Typical British movie, trying too hard to respect the privacy of its main characters. Discussing what went wrong in their marriage just wouldn't be proper, I suppose. Well, we don't want to be vulgar. But hey, good for them for putting their sons first and both being a daily presence in their lives, it's important. Also awkward at times. 

Things get worse when Philippa gets passed over for a promotion, and kind of just stops showing up for work after that.  John is not happy, did she forget the part about them needing two incomes to maintain the two residences?  But she's caught "the bug" of being an amateur historian, and after seeing a staging of Shakespeare's play "Richard III" she gets it in her head that history may have given Richard an unwarranted bad reputation, after all, Billy Shakes didn't write his play until over 100 years after Richard III died. So really, what were his sources?  Did he just tow the party line about how Richard was a usurper to the throne, and had his two young nephews killed because they were ahead of him in the line of succession?  

Philippa buys a bunch of (non-Shakespeare) history books and then tracks down the Richard III society, a bunch of like-minded people who frequent a pub and discuss their truths about Richard III - the prevailing theory among his fans was that lies and propaganda about him was spread by his successor, Henry VII in order to discredit him, and to prove that the Tudor House was superior to the Plantagenets, of which Richard III was the last male heir. It turns out that partisan politics ruled even back then, only they didn't have social media to spread lies about other royals, so they did it through paintings and rumours and claims that this person was born out of wedlock, or that one committed adultery, but you know probably they all did bad stuff and whoever was best at spreading rumors and lies came out on top.  A bit like today, and we've seen how once a story gets going about liberals drinking the blood of the babies in the basement of a D.C. pizza place or Hunter Biden's laptop containing the truth about Benghazi, those stories become very hard to dispute, because how do you prove things DIDN'T happen?  

If only someone could find the remains of King Richard III - the Tudors made sure that there's no grave containing his body or monuments dedicated to him - then maybe we could learn a few things. Was he really a hunchback, as Shakespeare depicted him?  Even if he was, would a deformed body naturally mean that he had a twisted, evil soul?  Did he, you know, have any hobbies or good qualities that we should know about, instead of just believing the party line, which dictates that the current Royal Family had to declare that they don't really acknowledge him as one of England's rightful sovereigns?  Ouch, that kind of stings, doesn't it?  You claw your way up to the throne by doing so much work, waiting for your older relatives to die, and then you end up with your remains thrown in a river, no grave, no monuments, and no legacy, all your deeds and accomplishments just added up to nothing in the end. Poor Richard. 

So Philippa sets out to find out what really happened to Richard, after he died following injuries sustained at Bosworth Field, the last battle of the War of the Roses, between the houses of Lancaster and York. (I looked it up, I'll admit.). Richard still put in the work, he was made the Duke of Gloucester in 1461 when his older brother, Edward IV, became king.  22 years later, when Edward died, his son (also Edward) was only 12 so Richard was named Protector of the Realm, essentially ruling England until Edward V got old enough to do so. However Edward IV's marriage was declared invalid, therefore young Edward V couldn't be king, nor could HIS younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, so Richard III became king by default.  Those two young nephew-princes were taken to the Tower of London and disappeared a month after Richard's coronation, that's what led to Shakespeare's depiction of Richard III ordering his nephews to be killed, apparently.  But, nobody really knows what happened to them?

Philippa finds a lot of information about King Richard's body being taken to Leicester (pronounced "Lester") and buried near a church, however whatever tomb or monument might have been made is long gone, and once he got all that bad press, somebody allegedly dug him up and threw him in the River Soar, but did they?  What if he's still buried somewhere, only nobody has yet superimposed the old map from the Middle Ages over the map of today, to see where that monument WOULD BE, if it were still standing, which it is not.  Philippa pretends to go to a work-related seminar in Leicester, but really it's a seminar about Richard III, and she's allowed some time after to explore the city and see if she can figure out where he might be buried based on whatever landmarks still remain.  Others have apparently tried this and failed, but she's read all of those books!  And she's asked questions of the other members of the club in the pub AND she knows a guy who's been tracing descendents of the royals using DNA, so if she COULD find a body, there would now (2012) be a way to use DNA to prove it's him.

Oh, if only it were that easy.  She's got to apply for funding from the city of Leicester, and the University of Leicester (Go, Fighting Pine Martens!) and then she's got to hire a whole team of archaeologists, get approvals to dig from the city council, and then there's the matter of closing down that car park (what we in America would call a parking lot) and even harder, finding other parking spaces for those 12 cars!  Parking's pretty scarce in Leicester already, there's like one multi-storey (garage) and it's always full. So while the team starts digging, Philippa's got to keep driving cars around the block so they don't get ticketed. 

Oh, and Philippa at some point begins seeing (and talking to) an apparition of Richard III, who's got some great life advice for her, but unfortunately he's not very helpful in remembering where he got buried.  Well, to be fair, who would?  I mean, he was kind of busy being dead at the time, so really, he's no help except maybe he is, in the broader sense.  Wisely she does not tell anyone that she's getting advice from a King who happens to look JUST like the actor she saw portray him in that Shakespeare play.  Well, maybe it turns out Shakespeare was a total tool, we really have no way to know.  Maybe Shakespeare had a little something going on the side with that hot actress, and maybe he would have been cancelled if there were social media back then and people weren't comfortable with men dressed up in drag on the stage, or women weren't happy that they were forbidden to act in his plays. Just saying. 

When nothing is found under the ground using radar, the funding drops out.  BUT, Philippa taps the resources members of the Richard III society, and also starts crowd-funding, because there are plenty of people out there who, thanks to the internet, become fascinated by the search for a King's body, even a supposedly evil, non-legitimate hunchback king.  Also, wouldn't it be really cool if she FOUND him?  

Also starring Sally Hawkins (last seen in "All Is Bright"), Harry Lloyd (last seen in "The Wife"), Mark Addy (last heard in "Mary Poppins Returns"), Lee Ingleby (last seen in "Ever After: A Cinderella Story"), James Fleet (last seen in "Blithe Spirit"), Bruce Fummey, Amanda Abbington, John-Paul Hurley, Shonagh Price, Helen Katamba, Lewis Macleod, Jenny Douglas, Benjamin Scanlan, Adam Robb, Robert Jack, Sarah MacGillivray, James Rottger, Jessica Hardwick, David Ireland, Glenna Morrison, Allison Peebles, Kern Falconer (last seen in "Slow West"), Nomaan Khan, Harvey Reid, Annie Griffin, Simon Donaldson, Julian Firth (last seen in "The Last Duel"), Iman Akhtar, Alasdair Hankinson, Sharon Osdin, Ian Dunn, Phoebe Pryce, Leigh Biagi, Violet Hughes, Josie O'Brien (last seen in "Outlaw King"), Katharine Edwards, Sinead MacInnes, Robert Maloney, Mahesh Patel, with archive footage of Charlie Rose (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love") and a cameo from Philippa Langley.

RATING: 6 out of 10 press conferences