"“An inane feature that simply doesn't go anywhere...”"

Following the huge worldwide success of The King's Speech two years ago, it had been inevitable that there were to be films taking pointers from the multi-Oscar winning feature, focusing on a similar time and of the same characters – and Roger Mitchell's Hyde Park on Hudson does just that as we witness the King and Queen of England visiting American president Franklin D. Roosevelt (for the sake of this review let's call him FDR, shall we?) over a potentially fateful weekend.

Predominantly we follow the love affair between FDR (Bill Murray) and his distant cousin Margaret (Laura Linney), which intensifies over time, before reaching its boiling point on the weekend that FDR and his wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams) play host to King George VI (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) of England, in what has since proved to be one of the most politically important weekends between the two nations in recent history.

Hyde Park on Hudson is effectively a character study, and has a series of strong performances to enhance such a notion. The two wives – portrayed magnificently by our best Olivia's – stand-out, while West also does a fine job as the King, and although no doubt unable to avoid the inescapable comparisons to Colin Firth's portrayal of the same man, he brings a more jovial, calamitous approach. Murray is brilliant also, playing a somewhat different role to usual, and doing well in depicting one of American's most important historical figures.

However, despite the array of good performances it's a shame they are all so obstructed throughout by Mitchell's puzzling desire to present so many scenes under such a dark light, where we struggle to see the characters who are on the screen. Call me old fashioned, but I quite like being able to see what's going on in a film.

Meanwhile, and at the risk of sounding like a paranoid patriot, it does feel that there is something of a disparaging take on the Brits within this picture, as one can't help but notice the superiority on the American's part. FDR is made to be this wise old gent; the omniscient leader of American politics. King George VI, on the other hand, appears a mere bumbling, paltry adversary at best.

Hyde Park on Hudson is simply a forgettable film, with a insignificant narrative and an even more inconsequential conclusion; one that deems everything that came before it mostly pointless, in what is an inane feature that simply doesn't go anywhere.

So yes, this is a feature evidently born out of the box office triumph and critical acclaim that The King's Speech had received, but now let's just cross our fingers and hope we aren't subject to any French silent movies with dogs in them within the next few years. Now that I couldn't take.