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I Served the King of England
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Romance | War
Written by:
Jirí Menzel
Bohumil Hrabal (novel)
Directed by: Jirí Menzel
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 29, 2008
DVD: February 17, 2009
Running Time: 120 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for sexual content and nudity
Starring Marián Labuda, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, and Marian Labuda
Jan Dítě is short in height, but high in ambition. To put it bluntly, the young provincial waiter wants to become a millionaire. And he knows just how to do it: by hearing everything, seeing everything, and creating opportunities at every turn. Armed with this knowledge and an irrepressible wish to please, he soon leaves his first place of employment, a pub, for a luxury brothel and, finally moving onto an elegant Art Nouveau Prague restaurant. But by the late 1930s, things are changing: Hitler has taken the Sudetenland region and is breaking apart Czechoslovakia. Jan falls in love with Líza, a Sudeten German proud of her Aryan blood. They marry, and soon after Líza is sent to serve on the Polish front, while Jan remains behind to serve as a nurse in a Nazi SS Research Hospital, but when she returns, she has a fortune in rare stamps that Jews had ‘left behind’ ... After Líza’s less than heroic death, Jan sells the stamps and becomes ... a millionaire. But he only has three years to enjoy his fortune: the new Communist regime puts him behind bars for 15 years, one for each of his millions... Upon his release from jail, Jan is sent to live in a decrepit border town. Here Jan reflects on the events that have shaped his life – and to reflect on what might have happened if he had played a different role in these events. (Sony Classics)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
It's a giddy nightmare. Nothing is quite what it seems in I Served the King of England, and this is poetically appropriate. The world it depicts is too dangerous and too lovely to classify.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
This is a dark story as well as a frothy one. But the bubble of absurdist self-absorption in which Menzel places this specimen of man-child is exquisite.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
If this actually were 1968, the pipe-smoking sophisticates of "Esquire" and "Playboy" would be proclaiming I Served the King of England a nettlesome masterpiece. For whatever good it does this film today, I'll stick my pipe in my mug and agree.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
It is a sumptuously told tale of childlike wonder in the face of darkest corruption and war, mixing high comedy, surreal sequences and genuine drama viewed from a wise, jaundiced perspective.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Aaron Hillis
A mischievously hedonistic, Chaplinesque farce, the film buoyantly but seriously traverses the horrors of World War II with a subtlety and sophistication that most American comedies cannot grasp.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
I Served The King Of England views diabolical events from the sidelines, something like "The Remains Of The Day" reworked as an absurdist comedy.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
A film as unique as this is a gift that shouldn't be ignored.
Read Full Review >Variety Eddie Cockrell
A virtual primer on the unique mixture of self-deprecating dark humor and personal tragedy that has been the Czech cinema's stock-in-trade since their celebrated 1960s New Wave.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The movie's main appeal is its special comic flavor -- a zesty fusion of picaresque adventure, absurdist whimsy and Chaplinesque grace.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Stan Hall
In the end it's those amazing, nutty set pieces, coolly guided by the veteran director, that make it all worthwhile.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
It's a funny, even whimsical film about a man who survives tragic times, complete with Nazis, pratfalls and plenty of mugging.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Viewers will be swept away by the beauty of individual moments and by Ivan Barnev's extraordinary performance.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It's a film filled with wicked satire and sex both joyful and pitiful.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
A charming, damning portrait that has been stinging audiences in the Czech Republic since its 2006 release. In any language, what the movie says about surviving fascism by rolling with it speaks loud and clear.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Delicious confection about the resilient Czech character, tastes like a bittersweet chocolate souffle, it's much more substantial than dessert.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
Menzel strings his sequences together with great affection and skill, but the movie, an absurdist picaresque, doesn't have much cumulative impact, and perhaps the hero is too much a lightweight to hold an epic together.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The performance of Mr. Barnev, who has the poker face and agility of a silent clown, defines the style of a film whose timing and physical comedy look back to 1920s slapstick.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
May not be a totally riveting movie, but it is, in its gently insinuating way, a curiously rewarding one.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Menzel’s touch is sprightly, lyrical, mischievously understated.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The mordant wit and paradoxical melancholic bounce you find in a great many Eastern European filmmakers informs every joke and rosy sexual encounter in the work of Czech writer-director Jiri Menzel.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
The deft physical comedy is a pleasure, though the leering chauvinism becomes more embarrassing as the movie progresses. Mel Brooks never had it this good.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
The new film is so leisurely paced and overly long that what means to be at once charming yet darkly satirical lapses into tedium and barely comes alive.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Should be a brilliant picture, one last testament to the intertwined sensibilities of two brave artists. Should be, but isn't.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Pirouettes along a beguiling but treacherous line between horror and whimsy.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
I Served the King of England, like its hero, is surrounded by and infused with the potential for meaning but feels like a lark: a bit of nothing whistling past the graveyard of 20th century European history without a thing to do but indulge itself.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jakub P. gave it a6:
Surprises me how well the movie has been received internationally. Jiří Menzel at his worst. What a pity his other movies he did from the late sixties to the end of the eighties are probably not so known except of the "Trains". Hrabal and Menzel has always been a guarantee for a great movie. This one is not. But Mezel has all my respect for what he´s done during his lifetime.
Peter K. gave it a9:
Chaplin in Forest Gump of east Europe in the first half of the 20th century: we are first-hand eye witnesses to many historical event. The actor playing the main character has whimsy, charm and warmth so we forgive him his many sins....
Ben Y. gave it a10:
Genius!
bardot B. gave it a6:
I really loved the costumes in this move. I am an actress and I am in a musical. I took a photo of this costume and had the exact one made at a local cotume shop. Bruna Costumes makes costume reproductions and they are awesome. That's the only reason I went to see this movie but I thought the acting was great and the story was different.
Mike J. gave it a10:
Simply wonderful! A great story in a wonderful presentation. Too bad Hollywood can't understand this.
Jay W. gave it a10:
A remarkable Czech film with a superlative cast. Not to be missed!
