By Pamela Zoslov
After Steven Spielberg’s worshipful
LINCOLN, it should be refreshing to see a presidential biopic
that doesn’t overlook its subject’s flaws. HYDE PARK ON HUDSON
takes an unflinching view of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
showing his withered legs, his need to be carried bodily by strong
attendants, and the frustration beneath his familiar bonhomie over
his handicap. It also highlights his marital infidelity. Who’d have
thought a film about presidential philandering would focus on the
discreet affairs of the crippled FDR rather than the brazen,
compulsive womanizing of John F. Kennedy?
As refreshing as this honesty is, it’s
uncomfortable watching the 32nd president, impersonated here by Bill
Murray, jiggling in his shiny convertible as he receives a hand job
from his fifth cousin, Daisy (Laura Linney). That scene is bookended
by a later one in which Daisy, at the behest of her presidential
lover, smears mustard on a hot dog held by England's King George VI
(Samuel West), a presumably unintended hint of eroticism that
underscores her role as FDR's concubine.
