(Some spoilers).
With many a nod and wink to Shakespeare's MACBETH, we are introduced to the dark manipulations of Francis Urquhart of the British House of Commons. Snubbed by the prime minister leading his party, and urged on by his malevolent wife, Urquhart embarks on a subtle master plan to depose the prime minister and rise to head Britain's government. So canny and devious is Urquhart's planning that the prime minister never knows what hits him; indeed he clings to his destroyer Urquhart as his only friend in what seems to be a world of traitors. The queen-pawn of Urquhart's game is an energetic, ambitious young reporter named Mattie Storin.
Most movies that have bad guys as protagonists fall flat with me (i.e. PAYBACK, PULP FICTION, THE FRENCH CONNECTION). To be successful, such movies need to give the villain a generous helping of some redeeming characteristic that makes him or her interesting. In THE GODFATHER movies, this characteristic is loyalty. In HOUSE OF CARDS, it is intelligence. Francis Urquhart is not a nice guy, and he eventually shocks both us and himself with how far he is willing to go to obtain his seat of power, but the sheer intelligence and complexity of his schemes compels our admiration. In addition to its direct debts to MACBETH, Andrew Davies' cunning screenplay borrows the Shakespearian device of having our bad guy speak soliloquies to the audience. This is hard to get away with, but Davies pulls it off with a charm reminiscent of RICHARD III or OTHELLO, and with more than a little help from Ian Richardson's beautifully dry acting. Not many actors could survive Paul Seed's seemingly insatiable appetite for closeups, but Richardson always leaves us wanting another look at that smug smile.
The dry and amused contempt for politics this movie conveys is a timeless but always welcome message. There is one telling scene where a candidate for prime minister and his wife receive an audio tape of him in a sexual liaison with his mistress. The wife remarks that she is not shocked; after all, the tape is fairly similar to how she herself met her husband. HOUSE OF CARDS is superior to its two sequels in that actual political issues play almost no role in the doings of the politicians; it's all about personal reputation and trading of favors and influence, and the two parties appear virtually identical. In contrast, TO PLAY THE KING and THE FINAL CUT are both savage, and not very effective, attacks on the ideology of Britain's Conservative party, suffering from the same difficulty American Republicans have had in convincing the voters that things are going badly for people under Clinton's administration; thus, unlike HOUSE OF CARDS, both sequels are limited in relevance to a particular time and place. Also, Seed's penchant for shots of rats, apparently intended to liken them to the characters, is just overdone. Is there a clause in BBC contracts that movies have to be a minimum of six hours long?
But carping aside, the film is wickedly witty and just plain fun. Not only is Richardson giving the performance of a lifetime, but Susannah Harker does a beautiful job blending innocence and ambition, and Diane Fletcher makes me want to see her play Lady MacBeth someday. Is this the finest movie of political intrigue ever made for TV? You may very well think that - I couldn't possibly comment.
Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.
With many a nod and wink to Shakespeare's MACBETH, we are introduced to the dark manipulations of Francis Urquhart of the British House of Commons. Snubbed by the prime minister leading his party, and urged on by his malevolent wife, Urquhart embarks on a subtle master plan to depose the prime minister and rise to head Britain's government. So canny and devious is Urquhart's planning that the prime minister never knows what hits him; indeed he clings to his destroyer Urquhart as his only friend in what seems to be a world of traitors. The queen-pawn of Urquhart's game is an energetic, ambitious young reporter named Mattie Storin.
Most movies that have bad guys as protagonists fall flat with me (i.e. PAYBACK, PULP FICTION, THE FRENCH CONNECTION). To be successful, such movies need to give the villain a generous helping of some redeeming characteristic that makes him or her interesting. In THE GODFATHER movies, this characteristic is loyalty. In HOUSE OF CARDS, it is intelligence. Francis Urquhart is not a nice guy, and he eventually shocks both us and himself with how far he is willing to go to obtain his seat of power, but the sheer intelligence and complexity of his schemes compels our admiration. In addition to its direct debts to MACBETH, Andrew Davies' cunning screenplay borrows the Shakespearian device of having our bad guy speak soliloquies to the audience. This is hard to get away with, but Davies pulls it off with a charm reminiscent of RICHARD III or OTHELLO, and with more than a little help from Ian Richardson's beautifully dry acting. Not many actors could survive Paul Seed's seemingly insatiable appetite for closeups, but Richardson always leaves us wanting another look at that smug smile.
The dry and amused contempt for politics this movie conveys is a timeless but always welcome message. There is one telling scene where a candidate for prime minister and his wife receive an audio tape of him in a sexual liaison with his mistress. The wife remarks that she is not shocked; after all, the tape is fairly similar to how she herself met her husband. HOUSE OF CARDS is superior to its two sequels in that actual political issues play almost no role in the doings of the politicians; it's all about personal reputation and trading of favors and influence, and the two parties appear virtually identical. In contrast, TO PLAY THE KING and THE FINAL CUT are both savage, and not very effective, attacks on the ideology of Britain's Conservative party, suffering from the same difficulty American Republicans have had in convincing the voters that things are going badly for people under Clinton's administration; thus, unlike HOUSE OF CARDS, both sequels are limited in relevance to a particular time and place. Also, Seed's penchant for shots of rats, apparently intended to liken them to the characters, is just overdone. Is there a clause in BBC contracts that movies have to be a minimum of six hours long?
But carping aside, the film is wickedly witty and just plain fun. Not only is Richardson giving the performance of a lifetime, but Susannah Harker does a beautiful job blending innocence and ambition, and Diane Fletcher makes me want to see her play Lady MacBeth someday. Is this the finest movie of political intrigue ever made for TV? You may very well think that - I couldn't possibly comment.
Rating: ***1/2 out of ****.