Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) on Netflix
R20121h 34mBiographyComedyDrama
In 1939, Sara Roosevelt asks Franklin D. Roosevelt's cousin Margaret "Daisy" Suckley to keep the ill President company at Hyde Park. That June, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrive.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb5.9/1012,765 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes37%
Trailer
Plot summary
Margaret "Daisy" Suckley, a distant cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt, is asked by his mother, Sara, to visit the ill President at the family estate in Hyde Park, New York, in 1939. Daisy and Roosevelt have not met in years, and Sara hopes company will take her son's mind off politics. Roosevelt begins asking Daisy to Hyde Park whenever he stays with his mother, and she becomes one of the women close to him, among them Sara, Missy LeHand, and Eleanor Roosevelt. That June, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrive for the first visit to the United States by a reigning British monarch; the British want American support in a coming war, and George, who took the throne after his brother Edward VIII abdicated, is nervous about the trip, his stutter, and a picnic held in his honor.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Screenwriter Richard Nelson built the film from a posthumously published collection of Daisy Suckley's letters and diaries. He lives in Rhinebeck, close to the story's setting, and had briefly met Suckley herself before her death in 1991.
- The story reached the screen by a detour: with Roger Michell unavailable, Nelson reworked his film idea as a radio play, produced by the BBC in 2009 under Ned Chaillet, and only made the film once Michell was free.
- None of the film was shot in New York state. Production designer Simon Bowles recreated upstate New York in England, where the entire picture was made, with Bill Murray signing on as Roosevelt in late March 2011.
- Roosevelt's affair with Lucy Mercer during the First World War is documented, but there is no direct evidence of a similar relationship with Daisy Suckley. He apparently told her to burn at least some of his letters, which has fed speculation ever since.
- Roosevelt biographer Geoffrey Ward accepts that FDR and Daisy drove to a hilltop they loved in 1935 and that he probably kissed her there, beginning a long fond friendship, but says what the film shows did not happen.
