This is a non-spoiler review for David Michôd’s The King, which starts streaming Friday, November 1 on Netflix. It’s currently playing in limited theatrical release.
The King is a sometimes riveting, sometimes rickety retelling of Shakespeare’s Henry V, starring Oscar-nominee Timothée Chalamet as a young reluctant king who’s quickly steered into a war with France by a retinue of advisors with questionable loyalties.
Directed by David Michôd (Animal Kingdom, The Rover), and written by Michôd and Chalamet’s co-star Joel Edgerton (Black Mass), The King attempts to take what’s commonly known about the famous play — that King Henry (given the common name “Hal” here) was pushed into a war by a self-serving council — and tether it to larger, modernly relevant themes about power and inherited violence.
Source: IGN.com Netflix's The King Review