The Lost King - Film Review

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The word "herstory" flashes on the screen minutes into director Stephen Frear's The Lost King. Blink, and you'd miss it. And in doing so the main point of this film. There is no connection between the first part of the word "history" and the English masculine pronoun "his," but when you see the word herstory you know there's a deliberate attempt afoot to insert a woman into her rightful place in history.

The woman in question is Philippa Langley, played here by Sally Hawkins. You may know Hawkins from the unforgettable movie Maudie (SBS On Demand) , where she plays the folk artist Maud Kathleen Lewis. The Lost King is the true story of how Philippa Langley located the site where the long-lost body of King Richard III lay buried beneath a Leicester car park.

In real life, Philippa Langley was an amateur history buff and writer. Although her vocation as a writer isn't explored in this film. Much is made, however, of Langley's connections with the Richard III Society, which campaigns to rescue the Plantagenet king's reputation from Tudor-era slanders.

As Winston Churchill said, "history is written by the victors." And after Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, The Tudors did much to malign the previous monarch, as an evil hunch-back bumping off his nephews in the Tower. Shakespeare, who spent half of his career writing under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, continued this vilification depicting Richard as a deformed and malevolent individual who took out his bitterness over his own twisted body on the world.

Philippa Langley aligns herself with Richard as being miscast by society. She doesn't have a physical deformity but suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome (Myalgic encephalomyelitis), a neurological disease causing debilitating fatigue, extended recovery from physical activity, pain, and problems with memory and concentration.

She's on medication but there's the tell-tale comment when her son describes her as having "panda eyes." She's overdoing things! Given her condition, Langley's obsessive research and standing up for herself against the male establishment is remarkable. And much of the raising of the £34,000 for a two-week dig fell to her efforts.

But there is more to 'herstory' than this. Her marriage has ended, and even though she has a good relationship with her two boys' father (played admirably by Steve Coogan) life is difficult. She tells her ex she needs a penis. He takes it as meaning she needs a lover. But in fact what she referring to is that if she were male, her life would be easier.

Langley stands up for herself but is overlooked for promotions at work. And despite her extensive research into Richard III, the male establishment shuns and diminishes her efforts. And when her research leads to finding Richard's attempts to diminish her role and steal all the glory.

Partly this is because of her disability but it is also because she's female, and in Phillipa's case, one led by her intuition. She recognises what the R in the car park really stands for.



In the film, she manifests visions of Richard and even has conversations with him. The heavy-handed use of his apparition is a bit like being whacked by a knight's gauntlet every few minutes. In real life, her discovery was the result of seven years of hard work and not being led to what amounts in the film to an imaginary friend.

Other than the overuse of Richard's apparition as a cinematic device, this is a fine film, capably directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen, Victoria & Abdul) and superbly acted by Sally Hawkins (Maudie, Made in Dagenham) and co-star Steve Coogan (Philomena) with a script co-written by Coogan and Jeff Pope (Philomena).

The Lost King will be a joy to those who love history because of the emphasis on a well-known historical figure. But will be valued by anyone who loves seeing herstory incorporated into that wider history.



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