If you don't mind seeing the American president whose March of Dimes led to the eradication of polio, who led the country successfully through the Great Depression (no revolution occurred) gave countless Americans decent secure old age retirement with the Social Security pension, and along the way happened to help conquer Nazi fascism and Japanese imperialism, portrayed as a chain-smoking alcoholic predatory lecherous sexual creep, who , by the way, receives a hand-job from his cousin Margaret Suckley (pronounced like book-lee) very early in the film, then you'll enjoy this hit piece from a Yale Man author, Richard Nelson. Never mind FDR was paralyzed from the waist down and likely could not manage an erection. Never mind the fact that Daisy Suckley's own first source diary and letters never mentions a hand-job or any kind of sexual relationship with the President, we are treated to entire fabrications of dialog and actions, in what can charitably be described as a character assassination of FDR. The only questions this viewer came away with after walking out 60 minutes into the film were, why would such a talented man as Bill MJurray lend his name to this trash, and why does the popular mainstream media seem these days absolutely unable to give FDR his credit and due? This hit piece is something Dinesh D'Souza could have cranked out. We know one fact about FDR's sexual life, he had an admitted affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherford which began long before his presidency and polio, and which friendship lasted to his death. We have absolutely no proof FDR had any sexual relations with any other woman, aside from his wife and Mercer Rutherford, and how sad that we live in an age where the memory of this president has been reduced to such garbage. A film about how FDR vanquished the paralyzing effects of polio to go on to the presidency, or his troubled yet politically tremendous relationship with Eleanor, or the inner workings behind the creation of Social Security, these could have been momentous stories, which the talented Bill Murray could have pulled off better than most. The question remains, "Why this character assassination, why now?"
Review of Hyde Park on Hudson
