Bill Murray Is Far and Away the Best Franklin D. Roosevelt in Movie History

Courtesy of Walmark Films

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


When I spoke with director Roger Michell (Changing Lanes, Venus) about casting Bill Murray to play Franklin D. Roosevelt in his new film Hyde Park on Hudson, Michell was emphatic in defending his pick to portray the 32nd president of the United States.

“I’ve read that some consider it ‘stunt casting,’ but in fact the reverse is the case,” Michell said. “I ended up realizing that I wasn’t interested in making the film without Bill Murray. There are other actors who you’d think would be great in the role, but nobody seemed to have that Wizard of Oz-ness about them, that kind of glorious mischief that Bill has.”

The reason Michell’s decision might strike some as “stunt casting” is because Bill Murray has (despite his more serious roles) an on- and off-screen persona that many would say is too awesome to seem presidential. I mean, have you seen Stripes? His stint on SNL? How about this photo of him co-hosting Eric Clapton’s blues-rock festival in 2007?:

bill murray eric clapton

Truejustice/Wikimedia Commons

Or this scene in which he attacks Robert De Niro:

bill muray robert de niro mad dog and glory

Via Universal Studios

Or this photo of Murray at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, clearly shunning any sense of stuffy decorum:

bill murray cannes film festival

Via Getty

See? Bill Murray is probably too awesome and entirely too party to play Franklin Roosevelt. And yet Murray knocks it completely out of the park.

“[Roosevelt] was a man who could charm the pants off the electorate, and got away with murder in his private life,” Michell said. “I was worried that in the wrong hands, some of the activities of the president could become predatory or deeply, deeply unsympathetic—and it would turn into the Dominique Strauss-Kahn story, or even the Bill Clinton story.”

Hyde Park on Hudson dramatizes the weekend the Roosevelts spent with King George VI and Queen Consort Elizabeth at FDR’s estate in Hyde Park, NY, in 1939. The film also focuses on the president’s intimate relationship with his aide Margaret Suckley, played by Laura Linney. It is a slight but endearing little picture, with a comic grace and some ace digital photography. (And along with the Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant romantic comedy Notting Hill, it’s Michell’s second “special relationship” movie.)

As FDR, Murray is something of a dignified riot. He plays Roosevelt as the president was in real life: an urbane, incredibly charming, booze-swilling, chain-smoking, womanizing frat boy. So if you think about it for more than a second, then yes, the choice to cast Murray is actually as obvious as you can get. This is also by far the best on-screen depiction of FDR that the movie industry has been able to produce. Not to belittle Murray’s fine work in the film, it’s just that there are so few portrayals even worth noting. Among them are:

Bill Murray’s FDR is more elegant—and more of a good time—than any of those previous attempts.

Click here for more movie and TV coverage from Mother Jones.

To read more of Asawin’s reviews, click here.

To listen to the weekly movie and pop-culture podcast that Asawin co-hosts with ThinkProgress critic Alyssa Rosenberg, click here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate