I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Finally got a chance to see this movie the other night. I had never even heard of it and came upon it by chance. The only reason I bought it was because Bill Murray is in it. I must say, as films go, style wise this is a really well done film. Beautiful cinematography, great art design and fantastic costumes. Superb. The story is interesting and fun to watch. I think, however, what the film really did was to show what a creep FDR really was, and how cheap Elenor Roosevelt was. The truth is FDR really was a martini drinking alcoholic knocking back a dozen a day. I thought the performances all around well exceptional. I would have never thought of casting Bill Murray as FDR but he was exceptional and a good dramatic actor. I'll wait a year, then bring it out again and re-watch and see if I think the same thing. Cheers!

I've always been a big fan of Bill Murray ever since I was a kid. I've watched a majority of his movies over and over. One thing you can always take from his work is that no matter how good or bad it is, he always seems to give a solid performance. The dude is pretty decent and has never really been accused wrecking a movie. Although I was a little turned off when he went dramatic right after Ghostbusters (1984) (he did a flick called The Razor's Edge which was a huge flop), I now realize that it seems commonplace for him to do more than just comedy. Every once in a while he seems to hold back the funny to show that he can act in any film genre. Here we have Murray playing Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Roger Mitchell directed Hyde Park on Hudson. Notice I haven't mentioned the film up until now. That's because there is not a whole lot to talk about. It's slow, it's dull, it's unnecessary, and it should only be viewed as a reason to see Murray flex his acting muscle. Like I said a few sentences ago, you can always trust this guy to give a good performance in an ocean of bad film making. With Hyde Park on Hudson we have exhibits A, B, and possibly C.It's about the last year of the 1930's with President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoying some time at his country estate in Hyde Park. While there, he gets a visit from the king and queen of England (Samuel West as King George VI and Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth) in hopes that the American people will see through him, the U.S.support for the United Kingdom. This all takes place as World War II is approaching. On the side, Roosevelt takes time to enjoy the ladies in Hyde Park as evident by his affection for a fifth cousin and would be mistress in Margaret Suckley (played solidly by Laura Linney). Their relationship spans much of the proceedings and it becomes the main essence of the plot. In my mind it would've help the film more if other aspects were examined, you know the important stuff (were talking war here people).But nevertheless, in a vehicle yearning to be a movie, you have just the two plot points mentioned via the last paragraph. These are sadly the only ones to work with. Trust me this is not very compelling drama. But hey, try telling that to the musical score (I made this point earlier in my review of Somewhere In Time). No matter what the scene, the outcome, or whatever, there is a compelling synergy of all kinds of instruments playing at the same time. This music is written to try to pump up the dramatic momentum in many a scene. I don't know about you, but when I see a character eating a hot dog or a sequence with two of the characters driving down a dirt road while making googly eyes at each other, that doesn't really evoke a symphony in my book. Even with the beautiful and haunting music, this movie doesn't established a point and even worse, doesn't try to make one.In the end, Hyde Park on Hudson suffers from being 94 boring minutes coupled with a few shots of beautiful scenery courtesy of London, England (masquerading as Hyde Park, New York). It also possesses what I think is a meaningful or I should I say meaningless, sense of time and place. The real reason to view this thing is the Murray screen performance. It is the true high point. Being calculated, meticulous, and assured, I would put it up there with his best work. The movie however, is the equivalent of watching paint dry. And I'm talking really, really wet paint.

Hyde Park on Hudson attempts to tell two stories concerning Franklin Roosevelt's visits to Hyde Park, where he shared a house with his mother, and had a separate cottage set up for visits with lady friends, and where he had as overnight guests in 1939, England's King George and Elizabeth, the Queen Consort.Bill Murray does a fine job presenting a Roosevelt that was witty and clever, yet scheming and manipulative as well. Laura Linney as Daisy seems to be the real star, narrating and telling about her relationship with the President, who is a distant cousin. The film begins with her narrating how she was asked, out of the blue, to come see him—she lived nearby, and how he started showing her his stamp collection, then took her for car rides in his specially designed car that had hand controls for everything so FDR could drive himself.They roar through the countryside. We see flowers and hills and, with the title being Hyde Park on Hudson, we look in vain for the Hudson River. It isn't there because the entire movie was filmed in England. I learn from other IMDb sources that the Roosevelt homes portrayed look nothing like the real life buildings either. That's O.K., Bill Murray didn't look too much like FDR anyhow.After seeing a hint that Daisy's relationship was perhaps turning physical with the president, the storyline leaves this to focus on the visit, four years after Daisy started meeting with her cousin, of the royal couple of the United Kingdom.In real life, they met the president in Washington and journeyed with him to Hyde Park, where they stayed overnight and tried to get him to commit to helping Britain in the coming war. Of course, the president committed to nothing, and Europe was at war for well over 2 years before we joined. One wonders, had our presidential elections been in 1938 and 1942, if Roosevelt would have gotten us involved shortly after the 1939 invasion of Poland. His reelection of 1940 was surely the main reason why he wasn't about to get us into a war right before that happened.In the film, the royal couple provide many of the small laughs, as they discuss differences in American and English customs, particularly the planned menu of hot dogs at the picnic. Elizabeth seemed so aghast at this delicacy, you would think she believe they were actually made of dog meat. They see FDR with another of his mistresses, outside the house from their upstairs window, and they just smile and wave.At the "picnic" we see Murray carried across the grounds to his table, which is, more or less, on the porch, not the grass. My trouble here was that this was in full view of well over a hundred people at tables spread all across the lawn. I know he was carried to places at times, but my understanding was that whenever there were people around who weren't in his inner circle, he arranged to avoid having them see that he needed to be carried like a small boy.Because he had learned Daisy was offended at not being invited to the big dinner the night before, he made sure to invite her to sit right beside him at the picnic. The film even shows Daisy putting mustard on the king's hot dog. I have learned that in real life, she couldn't have put the mustard on for the king because she was sitting two tables away from them.The film definitely picked up when the royal guests arrive. Before that, we had the tedious scenes of FDR showing his stamps to Daisy and chatting about nothing as he drove her around. I thought the first 25 minutes or so were quite boring.But since the scenes with the royal couple were not at all close to reality, and nothing was really accomplished other than the vague renewal of friendship between the two nations, I cannot see why this film was made.From various sources, the portrayal of King George and Elizabeth was not very close to their personalities in any way. The king was just 13 years younger than our president, yet FDR kept treating him as though he were old enough to be his father. It seemed like a ploy to make it seem like it was our president whose wise counsel enabled King George to be bold enough to achieve all that he did in his reign as king.The entire Daisy story was an utter bore. Apparently the diaries she left behind, published as a book and studied by historians, do not claim any kind of sexual relationship with FDR, as is suggested by the film. Her character in the film is totally uninteresting. We learn nothing about her life away from her visits with the president, other than that she lives with an aunt and takes care of her. Her big dramatic scene comes when she learns that the president has, at least one, other mistress. We are given to feel sorry for her because she feels hurt to learn that the married man with whom she is having an affair, has another woman he's seeing? Critics claim the movie's two stories made it unfocused. I agree. We saw no political maneuvering of FDR, no dealing with his work while at Hyde Park. We got no glimpses of his plans for reelection, or what he thought needed to happen for us to become involved in the war. If we weren't to learn about real historical events, and weren't really seeing characters portrayed realistically, what was the point?

Depicting the long-term relationship between FDR (Bill Murray) and his distant cousin Daisy (Laura Linney), HYDE PARK ON HUDSON is an excellent character-study of a US President making the best of his disability yet remaining true to his nature. A serial philanderer yet sincere friend, he is someone whom people have to get to know; he will not change. Daisy understands this through painful experience, forming a friendship that lasted throughout Roosevelt's lifetime. Richard Nelson's screenplay also focuses on the encounter between FDR and King George VI (Samuel West); like the President, the King suffers from a disability - his stammer - but through an encounter with FDR he learns to come to terms with it, forming the basis for a lasting friendship that was sustained on a personal as well as a national level. Sadly HYDE PARK ON HUDSON is let down by its determination to observe the hackneyed conventions of the period drama; there are too many spurious shots of sun-drenched landscapes, or period cars drawing up and departing from FDR's stately home. Some of the supporting performances are over-drawn: Olivia Colman's Queen Elizabeth comes across as a xenophobic prude, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to contemplate alternative lifestyles. Nonetheless the film is worth watching, if only for Bill Murray's amazing yet touching recreation of FDR.