The King is one of the best "Netflix" movies I've seen yet. Most "Netflix" movies feel like the equivalent of "straight to DVD" movies. At first, saying something was a "straight to Netflix" movie shared that same derogatory meaning as "straight to DVD". "Straight to DVD" was basically the dumping ground for movies that weren't good enough to warrant a theatrical release, but some nice coin could be made by sending them straight to Blockbuster. But Netflix is taking it beyond the "dumping ground" status. They want to be credible. They want to challenge the major studios (and they are). They have a completely different business model and enough subscribers to compete with major studios in spending. A year ago, they were changing things. Now, they HAVE changed things. Like it or not, the "Netflix" model is here to stay. And it's being replicated across the streaming landscape so fast that the whole TV and movie business is literally changing in real time right before our eyes. It's not a slow crawl, it's a sprint.
Now about The King. Timothee Chalamet stars as Prince Hal in 15th century England, who would become Henry V. This guy is a grade A actor. He's got screen presence to spare. He's one of those actors who elevates the material he's working with. In fact, the same can be said for the entire primary cast. Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Lily-Rose Depp, Robert Pattinson, and Sean Harris (the creepy villian from the last two Mission Impossible movies) all give terrifically fitting performances. The movie is a slow burn and often feels like a stage play, so it lives almost completely on the strength of the performances.
The story follows Prince Hal's reluctant transition into the role of King of England. It's essentially a simple, "heavy is the head that wears the crown" tale about how isolating and terrible the life of a monarch can be. It's also a period piece that reminded me of how long humans have been being terrible to one another. Can it be that 600 years ago people really lived this way? Life had almost no discernible joy.
At 2 hrs 20 minutes, it's a long movie, but the performances fill the space. Pattinson's evil, snarky French Prince is especially entertaining. And more than once I felt real compassion towards Hal and his struggles. Which is a testament to Chalamet's performance.
All this is to say that I wouldn't qualify The King in the "straight to DVD" category. It's not a "just a Netflix" movie. It's a quality film with quality actors doing a bang up job. It's also just one of many recent examples of how the movie business isn't changing...it's already changed.
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