The Tory leadership race may already have supplied plenty of entertainment – but sometimes the real drama begins when a new ruler actually takes power. Many films have examined what can happen when an inexperienced leader assumes control, from the Biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) to sci-fi blockbuster Dune (2021). Others have explored the challenges that face new leaders at the helm – whether it’s being duped into invasions, subduing those who don’t accept your rule or catching conspiracists. Here are ten that might make informative (or cautionary) viewing for the next Tory leader:
The King (2019) – Netflix
Seriously underestimated on release, David Michôd’s (The Animal Kingdom) retelling of Shakespeare’s Henry V is a great movie, and one that gets better with re-watching. In a dry run to his role as Paul Atreides in Dune, Timothée Chalamet stars as the young king Hal, duped (spoiler alert) into invading France by scheming Chief Justice Sir William Gascoigne (wisperin’ Sean Harris). There the monarch learns both the price of kingship and the value of friendship in the shape of pal Sir John Falstaff (Joel Edgerton, very good). Robert Pattinson (The Batman) has a rather droll turn as Louis the Dauphin, who appears to have been influenced by the abusive castellan in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) – he of ‘I fart in your general direction’ fame.
The Godfather (1972) – NOW, Amazon Rent/Buy
Francis Ford Coppola’s first movie in the trilogy charts the beginning of Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) moral decline, compelled by events and latent ambition to follow his beloved Pop Vito (Marlon Brando) as Godfather of a mafia crime family. The murder of older brother Sonny (the late James Caan), witless treachery of the useless middle sibling Fredo (John Cazale) and assassination of young Sicilian wife Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli) all contrive to push Michael along an increasingly dark path. Unlike his father, the new boss is a cold fish, at first underestimated, but then feared by friends, enemies – and family.
Excalibur (1981) – Amazon Rent/Buy
Along with David Lowery’s more recent The Green Knight
(2021), John Boorman’s Excalibur represents the gold standard of Arthurian legend on film. Boorman’s fascination with the period, when Celtic myth co-existed with 5th-century Christianity, brings a depth to Excalibur, combining stunning visuals with a superb cast and making a classic of its kind – despite some clunky dialogue. A lowly squire named Arthur (Nigel Terry) discovers his true destiny when he pulls the great sword Excalibur embedded in a stone. Plain sailing it ain’t for the new king, as he must subdue those ingrates who don’t accept his rule, establish Camelot, set up the Round Table, initiate the quest for the Holy Grail, deal with being cuckolded by straying wife Guinevere (Cherie Lunghi) and best mate Lancelot (Nicholas Clay) and finally face his odious bastard son/nephew (unknowingly conceived with spell-casting half-sister Morgana Le Fay – Helen Mirren) in a final bloody battle. Still, the kid done good, as the saying goes, aided of course by the wisdom of the sorcerer Merlin, eccentrically played by the great Nicol Williamson (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution).
Black Panther (2018) – Disney+, Amazon Rent/Buy
The late Chadwick Boseman imbued his role as African King T’Challa/Black Panther with grace, dignity and some self-aware humour. After the murder of his father T’Chaka (John Kani) in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, the prince is poised to become the monarch of techno wonderland Wakanda. But after facing off a ritual challenge from tribal rival M’Baku (Winston Duke) the now King T’Challa confronts a far greater foe. Who? Disgruntled and disinherited cousin N’Jadaka, a deadly former U.S. Navy Seal black ops assassin known as Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens. T’Challa wins out in the end of course, but his experiences lead to the new king vowing to share the scientific advances of Wakanda with the wider world. This autumn’s Wakanda Forever will feature the short-tempered ocean-depths dwelling super-amphibian Prince Namor (Tenoch Huerta), the Marvel equivalent of DC’s Aquaman (Jason Momoa). No relation to Octopus-fancying The Deep (Chace Crawford) from Amazon’s The Boys. We hope.
The Good Boss (2022) – limited UK cinema release from July 15
Although not about a novice head honcho as such, Fernando León de Aranoa’s (Loving Pablo) satire about Julio Blanco, a charismatic and manipulative factory boss (Javier Bardem in his third collaboration with the director) wrong-footed by circumstances, employees and his own hubris, fits easily into any movie selection about leadership. Used to getting his own way, Blanco finds his well-honed management skills, subterfuges, carefully planned dalliances and smooth deceits can’t guarantee an easy life. It should be required viewing for leadership candidates of any political persuasion. Bardem garnered rave reviews for his performance, with the picture receiving a record 20 nominations at the 36th Goya Awards and picking up six gongs (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Original Screenplay, Score and Editing).
Elizabeth (1998) – Amazon Rent/Buy
The teenage years of Princess Elizabeth Tudor are currently being dramatised in the STARZ series Becoming Elizabeth. I confess to being sceptical at first, but the show is not at all bad and in some respects revelatory, especially when it comes to the behaviour of Thomas Seymour (Tom Cullen), who became unhealthily close to the young princess. Shekhar Kapur’s popular biopic of Elizabeth’s early years as Queen goes for a Godfather-type vibe when depicting the various factions and conspiracies of the age, on occasion slipping into inadvertent humour when Daniel Craig’s purposefully corridor-striding assassin-priest John Ballard looms into view. Liz has a steep learning curve so that by the end of the picture she has come into her own as the white-visaged ‘the Virgin Queen’ – a description which is almost certainly more figurative than actual.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) – NOW, Amazon Rent/Buy
Although Aragorn aka Strider aka Elessar aka Thorongil aka Estel (Viggo Mortensen) is considerably older than he first appears and has been tooling round Middle-Earth for years in his Gandalf-guided apprenticeship for the role of High King, he rarely looks particularly keen on the gig. Which I guess is a sure sign of regal wisdom. Those who do not actively seek the post of ‘World King’ are usually best suited to the duties of meting out justice and providing enlightened, prosperous rule. Anyway, in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Aragorn finds the inner strength, astuteness, compassion and humility by the (almost) end of the trilogy to finally be crowned Elessar I, the 26th King of Arnor, the 35th King of Gondor, and the first High King of the Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor.
The Young Victoria (2009) – Netflix, Sundance, Amazon Rent/Buy
A reliable watch with a colourful array of real-life characters, the late Jean-Marc Vallée’s biopic glosses over some of the more unpleasant aspects of the monarch’s character in service of Julian Fellowes’s (Downton Abbey) script. Stand-outs for me include Jim Broadbent as ‘Sailor King’ William IV, who really, really disliked Victoria’s mum the Duchess of Kent. The film faithfully recounts the moment when William (with some justification) berates the Duchess at what was to be his final birthday celebration. The ailing King stated at dinner he wished to live another nine months, so that his niece (Victoria) would come of age and her mother never become Regent. He went on: ‘I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the royal authority to the personal exercise of that Young Lady [pointing to Victoria], the heiress presumptive of the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and who is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would be placed. I have no hesitation in saying that I have been insulted – grossly and continually insulted – by that person, but I am determined to endure no longer a course of behaviour so disrespectful to me.’
All the Way (2016) – Amazon Rent/Buy
America’s vice-president Lyndon Baines Johnson regretted his status as an ‘accidental president’ – although conspiracy theorists would disagree. Another one of director Jay Roach’s political movies for HBO (which also include Recount and Game Change), All the Way follows LBJ (Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston) in the months following JFK’s assassination before his successful election to the presidency in his own right. The Democratic president has been the subject of two other biopics over recent years. Woody Harrelson played LBJ in the movie of the same name, also released in 2016 – covering roughly the same period as Roach’s film. Michael Gambon took on the role in 2002’s Path to War, which as the title suggests is concerned with LBJ’s (mis)handling of the war in Vietnam. One thing the three movies have in common are the unconvincing (particularly in Harrelson’s case) prosthetics used to depict the president’s elephant-like ears and anteater proboscis.
The Deal (2003) – free to watch on YouTube
The earliest political biopic from The Crown creator Peter Morgan looks at the infamous meeting in Islington’s Granita restaurant, where Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) and Gordon Brown (David Morrissey) supposedly thrashed out an agreement regarding the leadership of the Labour party after the sudden death of John Smith in 1994. What was actually agreed? Some kind of power-sharing, where Brown was to have greater than usual autonomy as chancellor if Labour won – and vague promises that Blair would not (in Mrs Thatcher’s words) go ‘on and on’. It didn’t quite turn out the way Gordon expected, as we all know. Granita closed its doors for the final time in 2003; it then became a Tex-Mex restaurant before its current incarnation as an estate agency. Morgan’s next non-Crown project was the script for Ang Lee’s boxing themed Thrilla in Manila, about the Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier 1975 clash, but there has been little news about the movie for some years.
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