‘The Lost King’: Toronto Review

Dir: Stephen Frears. UK. 2022. 108mins

Passed over for a promotion and defined in the eyes of others by her chronic health condition, rather than by her skills and abilities, Philippa (Sally Hawkins) is fiercely attuned to any hint of injustice or misrepresentation when it comes to other people. She is also single-minded almost to the point of fanaticism. Which is why a passing interest in Richard III soon burgeons into a fully fledged obsession – to find the final resting place of the King and to right a 500-year-old historical wrong. The latest from Stephen Frears is a warm, wryly amusing account of a real-life story, a crowd-pleasing portrait of the kind of enthusiastic amateur who proves enduringly popular with British cinema; and, indeed, British audiences.

The film deals with the ease with which a damaging and incorrect narrative can take hold

Cut from the same cloth as pictures like The Flying Scotsman, about Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree who set a speed record on a home-made bike incorporating bits of an old washing machine, The Lost King is a winning, if whimsical, account of an ordinary woman achieving the extraordinary, succeeding with gut instincts and ‘feelings’ where generations of trained historians had failed. It’s a likeable picture which should be warmly received by mainstream audiences when it releases theatrically in the UK on October 7 (IFC Film has US rights). Hawkin’s terrific, nervy performance – with her bright curious eyes and fluttering manner, she’s like a wren in search of a particularly elusive grub – will be a key selling point and might translate into awards attention.

Philippa is hardly in the mood to take her oldest son to the theatre to watch Shakespeare’s Richard III. She has just been slighted by her boss, her ex-husband (Steve Coogan) has upgraded to a new girlfriend. But something in the production fires her attention. It feels as though Richard (Harry Lloyd) is talking directly to her. And over the next few days, he starts to appear to her; loitering by park benches, lurking in municipal back lots.

The film milks the comedy value of absurd juxtapositions: along with the appearance of a long dead member of the British monarchy in Philippa’s back garden, we also get Alexandre Desplat’s extravagant score, emphatic with intrigue, playing out as Philippa wanders around in the staff car park for Leicester’s Adult Social Services department. There’s also plenty of comic mileage in the group of misfits and “Ricardians” that Philippa encounters, hobby historians who meet in pubs and talk in cod-Shakespearian vernacular about the short shrift that Richard has been given over the years.

But for all the jovial humour, there is a more serious subtext – as one might expect from a script by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, re-teaming after their Oscar-nominated screenplay for Philomena. The film deals with the ease with which a damaging and incorrect narrative can take hold, whether it’s a Plantagenet king who was the victim of a Tudor misinformation campaign, or a mild-mannered middle-aged woman whose work is devalued or appropriated because she has the misfortune to be over 40.

And even when Philippa has been vindicated, her emotional and instinctive approach to historical research has borne fruit, the academic establishment casually dismisses her considerable contribution to the excavation. Men in suits presumably just seem more credible as historians than petite women swamped in slightly ill-fitting cardigans. But, the film suggests, meek middle-aged women can change the course of history, if they only get the chance.