The King Is a Chaotic Coming of Age – The New Republic

It is interesting to note that at 23, the age thatChalamet is now, he was still serving time as Edward Cullen in the Twilight series, an ordeal that has nodoubt contributed to his desire to take risks in his career. Theres a littlegremlin inside of me that thinks, Just say something shocking. Youre onlyhere for a few minutes, say something terrible, he admitted to Willem Dafoein Interview magazine late last year,talking about his attitude towards the press, but also somewhat accuratelypegging what he offers in The King. Theresa kind of perverse glee I get from that.

In Shakespeares Henriad, the arc that Prince Halfollows from Henry IV Parts I and II through to his coronationand eventual triumph in battle in Henry Vis in itself not unlike the ascension of a boyish movie star: Initiallyregarded as a heavy-drinking wastrel, he is forced to prove himself worthy ofpublic adulation by recasting himself as a serious man, leaving behind hisyouthful follies to cement his place in history. The diminutive Prince Hal, anickname meant to cut him down to size, is not a million miles away from theequally-belittling R-Pattz, or the cutesy Timmy Chalamet. Making The King, it would appear that Chalametisto extend the metaphormounting his own version of Agincourt, a swing forpower meant to announce his arrival as a full-grown leading man. Certainly, hehas a face designed for solemn close-ups: minutely expressive, perfect atconveying doubt and fear. If he is capable of the perverse glee and thebuck-wild, go-for-broke idiocy that Pattinson brings to the screen, he has notyet permitted us to see it. When the camera cuts between them, Chalamet is stilland exquisite, and Pattinson is gloriously, stupidly outsized. What results isa fascinating switch between the sacred and the thrillingly profane.

When he appeared as if from nowhere in Luca GuadagninosCall Me By Your Name, what madeChalamet so affecting was the way that, like an optical illusion, he appearedto shift from man to boy and back again, occasionally graceful and composed,and far more often petulant and attitudinally teenaged. Ironically, a little ofElios kid self-centerednessto say nothing of the adolescent sex-drive thatdrove him to quite literally have sexwith a peachwould not have gone amiss in his portrayal of the young andwayward Henry V, whose Wikipedia entry has a section with the brilliant title Supposed Riotous Youth. In interviews,Chalamet has proven as studious and as earnest as Pattinson is irreverent, withGuadagnino noting his intoxicatingambition to be agreatactor in a 2018 interview in GQ. (Pattinson, when he was roughlythe same age that Chalamet was in that profile, was bundled into media training forsuggesting that he styled his hair with the spit of twelve-year-old virgins.) Consequentially, ifhe does not effectively embody the young Princes sybaritic qualities, he iswell-suited to the role of a boy King: Something about him does appear predestined,focused on his future eminence. It is difficult to picture Chalamet, theyoungest person to be nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars in eight decades,wasting much valuable time on drunken revelry.

Because The King does not useShakespeares dialogue, we do not hear the Prince talking about hot wenches orthe tongues of bawds; there is some light carousing, and some heavy moping, butChalamets Hal often seems emo rather than excessive in his hedonism. It doesnot help that in loose breeches and a tunic, he resembles a beautiful gap-yearstudent with a penchant for hemp harem pants, or that for the first half anhour he has the same tousled, heroin chic hair that he typically wears tofashion week. Co-written by Joel Edgerton, who also appears as its taciturn,un-comic Falstaff, the films relatively unpoetic screenplay is more interestedin the ever-looping relevance of its sexual and class politicsdick-swingingrulers starting fruitless power struggles, poor men laying down their lives inservice of other, more powerful mens whimsthan it is in replicating the musicalityand elegance of the original text. (Viewers tolerances may vary: Personally, Iwould argue that to rewrite Henry Vslyric, immaculate Saint Crispins Day address takes, as the Dauphin says toHal, extremely beeg balls.)

If it is meant to function as a coronation for an older, graver incarnation ofTimothe Chalamet, The King is half successful.It is more likely to be remembered as the film in which Robert Pattinson tookhis love of perversity to its logical end. Having survived the trial-by-fire ofemerging as a sensitive, talented actor after years spent in the wilderness ofyoung adult vampire movies, he is free from the tyranny of having to makegood decisions, giving him the opportunity to make interesting ones instead. Heis hilarious here, rousing in his excess, and so evidently loving theexperience that his pleasure is contagious: To watch him deploying troops witha minute flick of the wrist, or flipping his incongruous wig as if hes posingfor a catalogue, is joyful. He has nothing left to prove. He has us at allo.The most interesting thing will be to watch Chalamet steadily reach the samelevel of abandon as he ages, until he is self-assured enough to play the fool.

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The King Is a Chaotic Coming of Age - The New Republic