The Lost King (2022)

 My favorite scene in Shakespeare's Richard III is the seduction scene. Here Richard lures the widow of a man he killed into his marriage bed. A great performance also lures the audience into the seduction, and it's only after the betroyal has been sealed that we realized what Richard, Shakespeare, and the actor have accomplished. Whatever else Shakespeare did to tarnish Richard's reputation, he did establish him as a figure who's difficult to resist. 

The Lost King taps into that allure. Not only is Richard's "ghost" (played by Harry Lloyd) handsome and beguiling, he grants the film's protagonist Phillipa Langley (played by Sally Hawkins) what every woman desires (per Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale): sovereignty--that is, the freedom to follow her own desires, hunches, and sensibilities. 

And as many have pointed out, the film grants that sovereignty by erasing the contributions of other women and vilifying the men affiliated with the University of Leicester. Or, to put it another way, the amateur historian (also frequently incapacitated by a form of chronic fatigue syndrome), Phillipa Langley, is allowed to shine by showing how she triumphs over the know-it-all, image-preening, recognition-hungry professionals at the university. 

The story undergirding the film is a good one. Though we weren't expecting a documentary, we were hoping for something that resisted caricature and easy storylines.