The King, certainly the best ever made for TV film, may just be the best movie experience of all time. Enormous intelligence and creative talent makes this epic a breathtaking, edge of the seat experience and informs the script, the direction, the cinematography and the acting. Both Branagh and Olivier produced superb tellings of Shakespeare's play, Henry V, but satisfying as these productions were for me they are surpassed by this Netflix effort.
"The KIng" disregards the theater's four walls and the constraint of Elizabethan language but eloquently employs modern English together with masterful depiction of the 15th century setting.The director's coordination of the brilliant cast and the awesome technical resources should win him the Oscar but that recognition as well as best acting awards would be a cheap recompense for the unique achievements of this movie.
As for Timothee Chalamet, I lack words to convey my joy that this brilliant actor has been given the chance to employ on screen the full range of his unexcelled abilities. Not since my wife and I ( an octogenarian and a nonagenarian) jumped (or tried to) to our feet in the second row for the curtain call at John Patrick Hanley's "Prodigal Son", huzzahing and clapping to express our feelings at our first exposure to Mr. Chalamet, has our satisfaction been as complete.
We must have caught the eye of this young man because while we were walking on 7th Avenue an hour after the show I was hugged from the back and my wife from the front by him and treated to a discussion of the play and his history with the easy camaraderie of a grand child.
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