MisterWhiplash
The Lion in Winter is about the games that people high up in power tend to play with each other when they can, but it's also about parents, their children and how a woman has to act in such a society. This movie is rich with a lot of ideas and concepts, and yet it mostly comes down to the acting - people not exactly of the small-time variety like Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn as the King of England and Eleanor of Aquataine (in other words, the Queen, or once was), and featuring supporting roles for the likes of Anthony Hopkins (his first film, really) and Timothy Dalton. Does a lot of this get stagy? Oh, very much so. It can be a drawback, or maybe just the "Showiness" in quotation marks. I use quotes since that's what other people say, and I do too. But is this necessarily a bad thing? No, but the feeling that this was a play and brought to the screen by its author is never left.This is all essentially a familial drama with political implications at a lot of turns: the King has to choose his heir, as he is fifty years old and seemingly won't live that much longer (perhaps for the time, the 12th century, it was quite old, albeit Eleanor is supposed to be 61). Who will he choose: super strong but emotionally wounded Richard, the middle-child with his own scheming Phillip, or the lovable but weak-willed and odd John? If he really could have his way he'd want to choose all of them - and, as one might see, the question could arise that none of them is an option - but a lot of these games are complicated by other factors, such as of course Eleanor, the mother of his children and a prisoner for her own scheming over the years; the King of France (Dalton) who is often referred to as "boy", and the king's sister cum mistress for Henry, and a to-be-betrothed to one of the sons (Jane Merrow, underrated among the cast, she's really good here).In other words, there's some wackiness that ensues, of the sometimes dark, melodramatic and brooding kind. But what I found most interesting were what was behind so much of the drama, what these characters carry with them and continue to do so, some of them as they are facing death sooner someday than others. With Eleanor of Aquataine, this is a character who has had power taken away from her, she really doesn't have anything, and yet she can - or really has to - cut Henry down every chance she can to keep up to his level. She really is a vulnerable character deep down, when she can show it, though when that is exactly is anyone's guess. Like many plays (or the ones that I've seen and heard over the years), the games that people play on each other - think Virginia Woolf, for instance - is what is supposed to make it riveting for the audience. Who is going to plot what next? How will all of this drama (verging on soap opera) unfold? Maybe all of this is soap opera. There were certainly times, like when the sons are hiding not totally comically in Dalton's bedchamber when Henry comes in to have a talk, that the staginess of it can't be helped. But what stuck out for me and what made me like the movie so much is that the director Anthony Harvey and writer Goldman takes this material as seriously as they can, and mostly as this family drama first. Again, one may think of Game of Thrones as well (this could just as easily be the Lannister clan, fans of the show will know what I mean). And yet in order for this stuff to work, the actors do have to sell it and not hold back; if one is to do this sort of high-voltage, highly emotionally charged stuff right, get some people who will commit to it completely.Peter O'Toole gives what could be one of his two or three best performances here. That's a bold statement considering what other work he did in his career, but really when has he been better? Yes, this King has to yell and pontificate in GRAND, BIG ways (in caps) in many scenes. But a lot of this, we are in the know on, is braggadocio, like a much more refined version of Archie Bunker or Ralph Kramden. And yes, a sitcom comparison could be made here, only the laughs had aren't shallow or base: these characters really can't stand one another - that, and, in one of those contradictions people have to keep in their heads one alongside the other, they love each other still. That's what's fascinating about watching O'Toole and Hepburn (in a role far more Oscar-y than 'Dinner' in 67). If you don't buy them as a bitter, wry, deeply wounded married couple, the movie actually doesn't work as well. I bought into them, and many of their scenes carry that electrified air of big, bold dramatic moments, especially in the last act when big claims are made about past familial ties.I don't know if it's all a great film. Some of the dramatic confrontations here get into that realm of such theatricality that it's hard to take a few times, just in that way of 'Oh, for chrissake, just kill each other and get it over with already!' But it has such a strong script and acting, and the themes of being a woman in that period and what a marriage was in such medieval times, or being a father and sons, that I had a great time watching it. By the end one senses not much has *really* changed for these people, but then why should it? Life goes on, until it doesn't, for these people of royalty and obsessive power
tieman64
Anthony Harvey directs "The Lion in Winter". The plot? It is 1183, and King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) has assembled his wife (Katharine Hepburn) and sons at his French estate. The King hopes to appoint his youngest son successor, but his family have other plans. What unfolds is a game of stealth and strategy, our large cast of royals, each a Machiavellian monster, plotting to cross, double cross and even kill, all in the name of titles and property. Based on a play by James Goldman, this is politics as schoolyard bickering, our Kings, princes and Queens as ignoble and idiotic as crybabies and bullies."The Lion in Winter" is shapeless, overly proud of its wit, and poorly structured. It is at its best when it acknowledges the comedic absurdity of its premise ("What family doesn't have its ups and downs?") and when a young Timothy Dalton is on screen. He plays King Philip II, a serpentine man whose burning hatred stems from both Henry and Henry's eldest son, Richard the Lionheart (Anthony Hopkins). Both father and son are a couple of rapists, sodomizers and brutes, with Phillip being just one of their many victims.But it is Henry's imprisoned queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Hepburn), who's given the film's best lines. In a long monologue she explains that her family, indeed the whole feudal system, is the cause of all the hate, violence and ugliness in the world. Moment's later she looks in a mirror and praises her own beauty.7.9/10 – See Kurosawa's "Ran" for this material handled as good as its ever been. See too "Becket" (1964), also with Peter O'Toole as King Henry II.
JasparLamarCrabb
Certainly well mounted but is it really much more than a soap opera circa 1150? Katherine Hepburn is Eleanor of Acquitaine, released from jail by husband Henry II (Peter O'Toole) for Christmas. Their power struggle to name an heir to the throne goes on for two hours plus with witty one- liners thrown out like Molotov cocktails. The two leads, along with Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, Jane Merrow, John Castle, and Nigel Terry, act up a storm reciting James Goldman's acid tinged dialog with a lot of gusto. One is left, however, with a feeling of emptiness as this movie drones on and on. It's exhausting. The direction (which consists primarily of having a camera follow the players around) is by Anthony Harvey and the production values are all first rate from the cinematography by Douglas Slocombe to the faux-regal score by John Barry. This movie one many awards including the Oscar for its screenplay.
