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I Served the King of England
Sony Pictures Classics

I Served the King of England reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 72 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.7 out of 10
based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA 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)


GENRE(S): Comedy  |  Romance  |  War  
WRITTEN BY: Jirí Menzel
Bohumil Hrabal (novel)
 
DIRECTED BY: Jirí Menzel  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: February 17, 2009 
Theatrical: August 29, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

Alternative Title: Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále

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...

100
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.
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91
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.
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90
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
90
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.
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90
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.
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83
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.
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80
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
A film as unique as this is a gift that shouldn't be ignored.
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80
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.
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80
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.
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75
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.
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75
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.
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75
New York Post V.A. Musetto
Charming to the max.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Viewers will be swept away by the beauty of individual moments and by Ivan Barnev's extraordinary performance.
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75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It's a film filled with wicked satire and sex both joyful and pitiful.
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75
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.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Delicious confection about the resilient Czech character, tastes like a bittersweet chocolate souffle, it's much more substantial than dessert.
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70
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.
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70
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.
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70
Time Richard Schickel
May not be a totally riveting movie, but it is, in its gently insinuating way, a curiously rewarding one.
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70
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Menzel’s touch is sprightly, lyrical, mischievously understated.
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63
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.
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50
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.
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50
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.
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50
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.
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50
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Pirouettes along a beguiling but treacherous line between horror and whimsy.
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40
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

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Peter Kalnin 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!

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