The Lost King shows us why archeology is cool

Ever since I was a wee nipper I had a passion for history and archeology. Years passed by, but, that passion never died and is still burning it's ancient warm flames deep inside every inch of my DNA. It's a subject that I well and truly live for and I doub't it will ever lessen in my eyes. So, when this film was first announced I was absolutely thrilled, given that most media revolving around archeology (atleast the pieces that aren't non-fiction books or documentary films and tv shows) are usually religated to heavily sensationlized thrillers, horrors and fantasy films like the Indiana Jones franchise (1981-...) or The Relic (1995/1997). Thankfully, this 2022 British biopic manages to combine humor, heart and history (look at that, 3 hs, cool) into a highly entertaining and geniuenly eductional ride that will be entertain audiences of all ages and even folks who generally don't have much of an interest in history will, most likely, find it surprisingly entertaining.

To give some much needed context to the more unfamiliar members of the crowd, as I've mentioned in the title of this review, The Lost King is based on one of the most important discoveries in the history of archeology, the influence of which can be felt on both medieval historiography and pop culture in general. On the 25th of August 2010, British archeologist Philippa Langley's three year long Looking for Richard project finally culminated, as the graves of an, at the time, unkown individual were exhumated from underneath the car park in front of the Social Services building in Leicster. The remains were later confirmed to belong to king Richard the Third Plantagenet, one of England's most reviled kings. The find (as well as additional historical research by individuals like Paul Murray Kendall and Joh Ashdown-Hill) helped disspell the age old myths of Richard's savagery, violence and overall unpleasantness, perpelled mainly by the Tudor dynasty (who wanted to make their own reign look like less of an absolute whirlwind of pain, misery and flying feces by claiming that there predecessor was not only a usurper, but also a child murderer and an overall menace to society) and William Shakespeare (a notorious Tudor asskisser whose works are only made timeless by their writing style and iconic characters). In 2013, Langely (alongside British historian Michael Jones) ended up publishing her findings in the form of a book titled The King's Grave: The Search for Richard III, which I, sadly, hadn't read as of the time of writing this review, however, I'll do my best to search it up at some point in the future and, of course, write up a review of it on here once I'm done reading it.

Ok, enough context, that's more than enough for an intro to the subject.

However, how was the movie itself? What exactly made me love it so much? Which elements were executed better than the others? Why is this arguably the single greatest portrayal of archeology in all of cinema? Are you ready to hear those answers? Well, if you are then, let's dig this up.

(1) The Writing

As you can infer from the title, I thought the writing in the film was phenomenal. It's not only my favorite film of 2022, but also sits proudly amongst my top 5 favorite British films of all time, alongside such highly influential titles as The Devils (1971) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), and I say that as someone who is generally not a fan of either comedies nor feel good stories. However, even though the majority of those genres is an absolute pile of rubbish, occasionally one can stumble across an absolute diamond in the ruff, and that was certainly the case with me and The Lost King.

What makes this film stand out in my opinion is the fact that the both the story and the way it's written feel organic and realistic. There's no saccarine sappyness or anything that would come across as weird and over the top. It simply sticks to the facts and the results work surprisingly well, not only in terms of accuracy to the portrayal of the events that inspired it (which, as some of you might know, is something I value quite a lot when it comes to portrayals of historical events, periods and figures in all forms of media), but also in terms of what constitutes as good writing, both within the confines of it's genres and outside of it. It's one of the prime examples of one of my core principles when it comes to judging the quality of period-based and/or biographical stories, that being Just because something is is historically accurate does not make it less entertaining, palpable or enjoyable for general audiences.

But Kris, how can this movie be authentic if, for a good chunk of the film, we see our main character talking to the spirit of Richard the Third? That has to be typical Hollywood bollocks.

Well, the imaginary, weirdly eloquent voice inside my head that I imagine to be the voice of my barely existing audience, it's actually far from that (it's also not a Hollywood film, but, hey, that's merely semantics). Whilst Langley herself never mentioned that she directly communicated with Richard's ghost, she did indeed state that, whilst trying to locate the gravesite based on the tips from her friends at the Richard the Third Society (to whom I'll henceforth be reffering to as Ricardians), she got a weird feeling every time she stepped into the area which, eventually, turned out to be the gravesite (I've found a few interesting articles on the topic which I'll link up here and here if you're curious to learn more, as they were my primary sources for judging the film's accuracy). Even the bit about Richard's body being found under a parking spot labeled R (as in Reserved), which I, honestly,thought was purely the invention of the film's writers, is actually true to the real life story behind it. That's, honestly, pretty metal! And, sure, what happened in the real world doesn't exactly correspond with it's depiction in the film, however, after all, the film is a visual medium, so it makes sense that the writers had chosen to go down this specific route and to the film's credit, Harry Lloyd does make for a pretty convincing and believable interpretation of king Richard.

The movie is also pretty authentic in it's portrayal of archeology in general, touching upon both it's wonders (like literally touching the remenants of the past and uncovering it's many mysteries) and horrors (such as institutional/academic sexism), resulting in the final portrayal being not only extremely authentic. Some might also argue that the overall message of the film is the scrutiny towards those who do not abide by the concepts present in the more mainstream branches of archeology and historiography, however, those same people usually support and greedily absorb any senseless/disproven notion that stems from the mouth of people such as Graham Hancock or Jovan Deretić, henceforth, we should forget about their existence and move on. Sure, it may lack the panash and flashyness of something like Indiana Jones or National Treasure (2004-...), but, as much as I love both of those franchises, they're certainly not very well representative of neither archeology nor history as academic disciplines with their own sets of issues, ethics and controversies, which is what might make this film uninviting for those looking for a similar adrenaline fueled rush, but, they'll certainly be extremely welcome (and dare I even say required) viewing for those with even a slight interest in pursuing said field.

(2) The Performances

I briefly touched upon the cast in my brief remark in the last paragraph, however, as much as I love Lloyd as Richard, as he gets very few lines throught the whole film, I don't think I need to focus on him much (even though his performance is as wonderfully charming as the film itself). Instead, let's talk a wee bit about the rest of the cast.

The, in my humble opinion, wonderfully charismatic and attractive actres Sally Hawkins has had a fairly prolific film and TV career across a whole slew of genres (The Phantom Menace, Godzilla, Godzilla: King of the Monsters and The Shape of Water, just to name a few), being one of those actors who can fix even the most mediocre title with her talent. Fortunately, she shines ever brigthter in great films, which was certainly the case here (as was in The Shape of Water, albeit I admit I might be a bit biased on the count of that one, as it's one of my favorite films of all time). Sure, she might not look one to one with Langely (to tell you the truth, they don't even look mildly similar), however, she manages to gether passion and energy across, resulting in the creation of both a compelling character and a reasonably true to the facts depiction of the real deal. Again, Langely represents an archetype we've seen before, who does represent a very real issue in contemporary academia: a noble protagonist who fights against the established boundries set up by the system and it's expectations and who isn't even given proper credit for their work even after their aim proves to be in the right. Like I said, it's a testament to the everenduring presence and power of institutional sexism present in academia. And, also like I said, it's a rather refreshing portrayal of an old cliche, similarly to how everybody remembers Indiana Jones and Lara Croft mostly for the iconic performances of the actors cast in the roles, despite the fact that the characters they're playing are rather flat and uninteresting (curtesy of the fact that they were inspired by the leads from the good old days of literary pulp fiction, the stories and characters of which were about as complex and deep as the question Why turbofolk is the biggest abomination to come out of the music industry?). Fields brings something to the role that geniunely makes her stand out amongst archeologist characters in movies and TV. Sure, she has plenty of talent and charisma, but she also manages to show off her human side. Again, how many iconic movie historians and archeologists can you think off, right now? Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Benjamin Franklin Gates, Milo Thatch, maybe a few others. What do they all have in common? They're all fictional characters. And what do people like doing with fictional characters? Turn them into idealized, instantly recognizable icons. Does it always work? Nope. But most of the time it does. This might come off as a schock to you (especially if you're either: a) Russian, b) a nationalist or c) Mel Gibson), but that's not exactly something one can do with real people, which results in characters like this on-screen adaptation of Philippa Langley, being a lot more compelling and relatable to the audience, especially to someone (such as myself) who has had experaince with working in the tenious field of archeology.

Another brilliant role comes to us from well-known British comedian Steve Coogan (who also serves as one of the film's lead actors) who plays Philippa's estranged husband (now ex-husband) John Langley. The relationship between the two gives the movie an emotional core. Usually, I'm not a fan of this trope in films based on real events (I'm a known hater of James Cameron's Titanic after all) as I believe that the stories and figures these films and shows are based around are already interesting, tense, dramatic and engaging enough in their own right without the pointless fodder of interpersonal drama (especially the kind that focuses on relationships) being tacked onto the story, in much the same manner that I believe medical dramas and police procedurals should focus on medicine, solving the myster and accuracy to the afforementioned elements first and character/relationship drama second (sadly, that's not the case about 99.9% of the time though, but, hey, the guys pumping them out make money and I yap about it on the the Internet and don't, so guess I'm in the wrong here). However, the one thing that makes it work here is the chemistry between Hawkins and Coogan. Sure, it took some getting used to to seeing Octavius from Night at the Museum (2006) live and work through marital problems and not being supportive of his wife (the man was already in a perfectly happy implied gay relationship with Own Wilson's character of Jedediah the cowboy after all), however, the way the duo managed to carry the relationship and insane chemistry between them actually made me care about the final outcome of the film's more human story and supposed emotional core. Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't AS invested in it's outcome like I was in the outcome of the scientific part of the narrative (I'm a nerd, ok?), but, I'd lie if I didn't atleast slightly root for the two of them, which should speak in the favour of the performances at hand.

(3) The Critiques

As someone with atleast a year of review experiance under his belt, I need to make one thing perfectly clear for any aspiring critics in the audience (not that my audience is particularly large or actually exists beyond maybe one or two people, but I like to fantasize that it exists from time to time). As much as you love one of or all of your favorites for one reason or another, there's never going to be such a thing as a perfect piece of media or something that pleases absolutely everyone (even when talking about it's intended audience). So, don't be afraid to acknowledge that something you love has issues of some kind. This can be exceptionally hard, however, it'll make your reviews far more objective and, henceforth, better.

So, what was the purpose of this rant? Well, to show that, as much as I love some pieces of media and give them my unending praises on here, there's very few things out there that are legitimately above and beyond any sort of critique. As great or atleast entertaining/enjoyable something may be does not mean it's flawless. The Lost King is one such example. However, don't let yourself to be deterred by this, as the movie is still absolutely phenomenal despite the issues at hand and anyone even remotely interested in the subject should give it a watch. Besides, as you'll see, I'm mostly nitpicking here, as I do try to encompass absolutely everything about the subjects of all of my reviews into them.

My first complaint is, honestly, the most subjective one out of them all, that being that I'd honestly wish they put a lot more emphasis on the details regarding the process of Langley's investigation and research into Richard's life, death and depictions, as well as the process of the excavation itself and the drama that came along with that. Sure, all of those do directly feature in the film, but, I just wish that the writers and director decided to go a tad bit more in-depth in regards to the details of the process. However, at the same time, I can see why this was done. Like many phenomenal pieces of media before it, The Lost King fell a victim to an all-encompassing eldritch terror that shoves it's slithery tendrils everywhere. Say it with me now: appealing to the general audience. Yes, yes, the same argument most writers and directors bring up when they're too lazy to think of a more logical explanation as to why they don't choose to follow the facts behind the figures and events they're basing their movies on or when they completely change the plot and the lore of a beloved IP they've decided to adapt (or, I suppose, the word butcher would've been a more appropriate term). If I'm honest, I've never been a fan of this technique, althoght I can't be too judgemental, as movies should appeal to very wide crowds, henceforth the changes and the whole process of leaving the details out of the equation are both understandable (and only inexcusable if they're based on real world figures and events in my opinion), however, here it's nothing too drastic and I do feel like somebody who isn't aquainted with or that interested in history and archeology would find the final product rather dull if they decide to include the details (however, the real question is why would anyone who ISN'T interested in the subject matter actually want to see this film, unless they particularly like the efforts of somebody from the cast/crew I suppose).

The soundtrack was also, a tad bit too generic for my tastes.

Don't get me wrong, I actually kinda liked it at points, as it does fit the film's quirky, upbeat style, tone and feel, but, at the same time, I can't really deny that it feels like easy to license stock music in pretty much every shot it plays in. It's far from being terrible nor is it even a real drawback from the overall experaince if I'm honest, but, again, like I said, it feels very cheap and generic and is far from being on the list of my favorite movie soundtracks.

So, in conclusion, would I reccomend seeking this one out? As a matter of fact, I certainly would. The directing and cinematography are absolutely breathtaking (wheater we're talking about small scale scenes or more cinematic ones) and the writing is a perfect blend of tense, entertaining, wholesome and educational. Top all of that off with an excelent cast and you get what I can easily see as the perfect archeology inspired flick that is both an interesting story in it's own right and a surprsingly accurate portrayal of the events and figures that inspired it. If you have an interest in history, archeology, historiography or know someone who does, I highly reccomend putting this one on for a weekend movie night with your friends. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cheer and even learn something new. And what could be more fun than that?

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