The Lion in Winter: The Sopranos are amateurs compared to this family!

Take one father, who has a slight, urm, problem with the ladies; add his intelligent and acid-tongued wife; mix in their three boys; the father's girlfriend who just so happens to be the wife's foster-daughter and one of the boy's fiancee, and guess who's coming for Christmas dinner? The girlfriend's little brother who happens to be a big politico of his own and isn't too happy about the fact that the father is messing around with his sister. The explosion that follows is intense and far-reaching.

Nope, it's not Jersey.

It's France (the English part of it) and the year is 1183.

The father is Henry II, his wife is Eleanor of Aquitaine, and one of those three boys is known as Richard the Lion-heart. Henry is old, he's just buried his eldest son (also named Henry) and he has to decide which of his three remaining boys, Richard, Geoffrey or John, is going to be King of England after him. And Eleanor? Well, she can't be too easily ignored either, she controls a sizable chunk of France in her own name, as Duchess of Aquitaine. The problem is that she really doesn't like Henry having girlfriends. Richard, who's Mummy's favorite boy, isn't too happy about it either, especially since dad's current main squeeze is his fiancee. John is Daddy's favored boy, but really too young and foolish to understand the big picture yet, and then there's Geoffrey, left out in the cold. Philip, the king of France, gleefully plays all of them against each other and everything escalates into one of the most tense bedroom scenes that I've ever seen on film.

All them scheme and plot and merrily hate and loathe each other, with some of the fastest, and smartest dialoge ever written. This was originally a stage play, and Hollywood was smart enough to get the original playwright, James Goldman, to do the screenplay as well. (He got an Oscar for it)

The cast is fabulous as well: Peter O'Toole as Henry, Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor (her best role, IMHO, and she also got an Oscar nod), Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton in their big screen debuts, and Nigel Terry as the hapless John.

Unlike most historical films, this one went for a simple and minimalist look that feels right. Watch Henry breaking the ice on the bucket so he can wash his face in the morning. Kicking chickens out of the way going down a flight of stairs. All of this serves to focus your attention on the actors and the script, and by gum, it works!

This is one of my favorite films of all time, and if you want a smart, funny, and ultimately thought provoking film about power and what it does to people, take a look here.

Not rated, but would probably get a PG rating. Not a film for children, despite there being very little actual violence (one almost death on a tournament field, a pitched battle on a beach), very little sex, but people are talking about it all the time.

[Update June 2001: this one has finally been released on DVD. Included is the trailers and an audiocommentary by the director, Anthony Harvey. Also has French and Spanish subtitles.]