Accent: check. Impersonation of famous person in biopic: check. Forbidden love: check. Wheelchair: check. It looks like Bill Murray is ready for his Oscar moment. The actor was seen as a favorite for the award in 2004 for his performance in "Lost In Translation," but was beaten at the last by Sean Penn in "Mystic River." He's continued to make quirky, picky choices ever since, but no film seems to have a better chance of giving him another run at awards gold than period drama "Hyde Park on Hudson," a trailer for which has just debuted over at Yahoo.
The film, directed by Roger Michell ("Notting Hill," "Changing Lanes"), sees Murray play the great President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and tells the story of a weekend when FDR and his wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams) went to a country retreat on the Hudson with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (Samuel West and Olivia Colman, playing the same roles that Colin Firth and Helena Bonham-Carter did in "The King's Speech"), as he considers whether to enter the war that Britain are about to enter. But there's more; Roosevelt's cousin and rumored mistress Margaret Stuckley (Laura Linney) is there as well, sure to cause trouble and heartache.
You can't fault a cast like that, and going by the trailer, this looks to be a solid piece of drama with some seemingly fun comedic elements thrown in. It's very much carved from the mold of "The King's Speech," but for all the subsequent backlash, that film was a pretty decent time at the movies. And Murray certainly seems, as we've always suspected, to have the right stuff for an Oscar run on the back of this, and some of his supporting cast may well end up coming with him. Of course, that's all a ways off yet: Focus Features aren't releasing the film until December 7th, but are clearly trying to get the buzz out early. Check the trailer out below.