Where are the bones of Ricard III? The uncertainty of their location impelled amateur historian Phillipa Langley (Sally Hawkins) to seek funding to find them and at the same time restore the reputation of the king much-maligned as a child murderer and usurper. Docudrama The Lost King, both informative and comic, gets right not so much the clues to the whereabouts of the monarch’s remains as the process of an amateur going nose to nose with academics and dear friends, who don’t believe her and think she is going senile.
Phillipa is depicted as both a dreamer and a digger, a civilian who feels more deeply about the treasure than the academics who have made careers out of alternative theories about the bones. She joins the local Richard III Society and seeks funding from every possible source, much as archaeologists over the 500 years have done. Anyone doing research can testify to the vagaries of the job.
Director Stephen Frears has smartly woven in the imagined appearance of the “real” Richard (Harold Lloyd) only to Phillipa, as Richard gives her encouragement and reacts angrily to her question about whether or not he killed the two princes in the tower. The Lost King hints at the controversy about Shakespeare’s changing history with the murders to improve sales.
Sally Hawkins is a Brit actress who can play a naif with the best of them as she did as the Poppy for Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) and Elisa in The Shape of Water (2017). As Philippa, she is passed over at work in part for her chronic health condition, but she is an intuitive explorer of the conjunction of history and the contemporary, pushing forward fanatically with her thesis despite the opposition, mostly by men, even her still loving ex-husband.
While no discernable feminist agenda appears, it seems she might have accomplished more sooner had she been a woman. Brits love this kind of amateur underdog (see The Duke and The Flying Scotsman). She is hampered by the perception that her characteristically feminine emotions and intuition have no place in academia. Maybe worse, she’s over 40!
Plenty of comedy is milked from the Ricardians, a society of misfit historians dedicated to rehabbing Richard’s reputation. She’s also helped considerably by the head of the Leicester Council, a female who gains the project’s funding despite opposition.
The Lost King is a delightful experience with a light heart and warm history. Oh, yes, and an award-worthy performance by Sally Hawkins.
