To Catch a Thief and The Lion in Winter

Katherine Hepburn won a late-career Oscar for her role in The Lion in Winter (1968), a very odd movie in which the royal intrigue of Henry II and family descends into a simple tale of a dysfunctional family, which proves that nothing much has changed in the Royal Family during the last thousand years.

Peter O'Toole is the King, who wants to give the throne to his youngest son. Eleanor of Aquitaine (Hepburn) has different plans, as she wants her favorite son (Anthony Hopkins) to take the throne. A third son has plans and wishes of his own. The clash of all these personalities ensure that a lot of psychological scheming will ensue. One review called this Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf transferred to the British royalty, and whoever said that certainly wasn't missing any bets.

As with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in that film, Henry and Eleanor have a crazy love/hate relationship. One moment they talk to each other in warm terms, the next moment they are at each other's throats, playing mind games with each other in hopes that their respective favorite will be chosen. Of course, Henry is the king... which means that he is almost always one step ahead. After all, he's had Eleanor jailed in France for years, trotting her out for special occasions and holidays (such as Christmas, when this movie is set). And he's been having an affair with a young girl for the longest time, always promising to marry her, but, in fact, using her as a pawn just like he does with everybody else.

I won't spoil the ending, but, for me, it was at that point when I realized that this film was in fact a comedy. Sure, there are all kinds of funny lines, and even actual funny scenes, but the nature of the ending proved to me that what I was watching was not a movie about political/royalty intrigue, but a movie, quite simply, about the most dysfunctional family of all time -- the most, because they, unlike other crazy families, controlled the British Empire, and therefore their silly shenanigans had the potential to affect everybody who lived in it. The implication at the end is that, this is just the way it is for this family, as with many others, and, next Christmas, and the Christmas after that, it will be the same thing all over again. This film is slow,

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