About

The King is a historical drama film directed by David Michôd and stars Timothée Chalamet, Lily-Rose Depp, Robert Pattinson, and Ben Mendelsohn. The film centers around King Henry V's early life and the events surrounding the historical battle of Agincourt. The King was loosely based on several plays from William Shakespeare's "Henriad" and was released to Netflix in November 2019.

History

On August 27th, 2019, Netflix released a teaser trailer for The King which received over 4.2 million views in two months on YouTube (shown below, left). The final trailer was released on October 24th, and garnered over 1.6 million views in two weeks (shown below, right).

On November 1st, Netflix released the film and on YouTube uploaded a short video on the historical events the film was based upon (shown below). The YouTube video gained over one million views in four days.

Reception

On October 8th, 2019, Rolling Stone^[5] released a review that praises Robert Pattinson's performance as the Dauphin of France by saying, "The real live-wire in this historical epic is Robert Pattinson, who swans around playing the Dauphin with an outrageous French accent and a teasing wit that lifts The King out of the doldrums whenever he’s on screen." On October 10th, The New York Times ^[4] published a review of The King. The article explains that "Chalamet is appealing (bowl haircut or no), but also routinely outperformed by a cast that includes the reliably strong Sean Harris as one of Henry’s advisers." The next day, Roger Ebert ^[3] review exclaimed that "With weighty things to say about contemporary and corrupt institutions of power and even dangers of male hegemony, Michôd’s non-preachy “The King” comes with philosophical heft and visual authority to match." 911 Redditors were polled in a r/Movies^[1] post and 73% would recommend the film. As of November 5th, the film has a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.^[2] The King has been nominated for several Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts Awards (AACTA) including "Best Film."^[6]

Fandom

On November 1st, 2019, many Timothée Chalamet fan accounts began showcasing their illustrations inspired by the film. That day, Instagram user timotheespastself^[8] posted a depiction of Prince Hal in a bonnet (shown below, left). The image received over 190 likes in four days. On November 4th, Instagram user sn0wyart^[7] uploaded an illustration of King Hal which received over 100 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Related Memes

On November 1st, 2019, many Twitter users posted images of Timothée Chalamet and his performance. Twitter user @snedr0nningen^[9] tweeted, "I'm a whore for the bowl cut #TheKing" (shown below, left) and Twitter user @zoe_alliyah^[10] commented on Chalamet speaking french in the film which gained over 1,400 likes in four days (shown below, right).

That same day, Twitter user @himotheeproof compared the "dauphin of france in the battle of agincourt" to a video of someone slipping in the snow (shown below). The tweet accumulated over 480 likes and 125 retweets in four days.

Robert Pattinson's performance as the Dauphin became popular in comments about the film due to his thick French accent and comedic role. On November 1st, Twitter user @ephwinslow uploaded a popular clip of the film in which "Robert Pattinson tell[s] Timothée Chalamet he has 'giant balls with a tiny cock'" (shown below). The video gained over 9,000 likes and 2,100 retweets in four days.

On November 3rd, Redditor bananacake8008 uploaded a clip from the film which features trebuchets to r/trebuchetmemes^[11] which received over 6,700 points (98% upvoted) in two days (shown below).

On November 3rd, Twitter users continued to comment on the film by adding captions to clips. Twitter user @wilderpeopIe captioned a clip of Chalamet yelling "stop the fucking charade" with the caption "when your buddy keeps tweeting about no nut november but you hear his sock squelching" (shown below). The tweet accumulated over 180 likes in two days. On November 5th, Buzzfeed^[12] created a list of memes in relating to the film.

Search Interest

External References