The marvelous Murray.

Let others slobber over Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. In this year of looking over our shoulders at past leaders with more heroic leadership qualities than the ones we’ve been getting lately, I’ll stick with Bill Murray as Franklin D. Roosevelt. There are two Hyde Parks—one in London and one in upstate New York on the Hudson River, where FDR made his summer home. Hyde Park on Hudson is an elegant, entertaining warts-and-all portrait of the 32nd U.S. president and the momentous summer weekend in 1939, on the eve of World War II, when two worlds melded and he hosted America’s first royal visit by a British monarch. The arrival of freshly anointed King George VI and his wife Elizabeth blends the stuffy formality of English manners with the down-home flavor of an American picnic in a film that is guaranteed to enthrall. It’s The King’s Speech with hot dogs and mustard.

The royal visit turned Hyde Park upside down. Still spinning from the abdication of Edward VIII and his scandalous marriage to a divorced woman and “an American, of all things,” the Brits were skeptical, but they needed support for the inevitable war. The Americans were rendered no less cautious by the presence of an inexperienced king who stuttered. To thicken the stew, there was also the urgent need on the part of his staff and advisers to hide Roosevelt’s true nature—an unquenchable passion for the ladies that turned the summer White House into a hotbed of sexual shenanigans while he was confined to a wheelchair and his wife Eleanor turned the other way, including simultaneous affairs with his loyal secretary “Missy” LeHand (Elizabeth Marvel) and his prim, dignified spinster cousin Margaret “Daisy” Suckley (warmly, engagingly and intelligently played by Laura Linney), who had a special talent for giving FDR discreet hand jobs on jaunty country drives through the back roads of Dutchess County in his cherished convertible. Based on Daisy’s private journals and diaries, discovered after her death, the rich screenplay by Richard Nelson draws a parallel between the trusting friendship that developed between two courageous, insecure world leaders (a stammering king on the verge of leading his country into war and a polio-stricken president who had just guided his people through the Great Depression) and the painful discovery by his disillusioned lovers that FDR was a very different man than the one he projected to the world at large. Threading myriad disparate elements into a rich needlepoint of humor, pathos and period detail, veteran director Roger Michell has created a sumptuously photographed feast, filmed in the actual historical locations 90 miles north of New York City. From the scurrilous details of FDR’s horny meetings behind closed doors with a variety of conquests (including New York Post owner-publisher Dorothy Schiff), to the silken settings of his mother’s manor house, everything about Hyde Park on Hudson is a thrill to discover and behold.

The cast brings it to life with sparkle and aplomb. The great Elizabeth Wilson is severe and imposing as FDR’s dragon-lady mother, Olivia Williams shows why the legendary Eleanor was an icon to millions but an abused and neglected wife to her husband in everything but affairs of state, Samuel West is a sensitive and astute king and Ms. Linney projects a powerful, pristine influence throughout as the chosen interloper—not really an outsider, but hardly a member of the inner family circle; left out of the official festivities, yet summoned at odd hours when the president needs a shoulder to lean on; opening doors to let in the light while averting prying eyes. But at the center of the action, holding the pieces together with infectious dazzle, a droll Bill Murray simply seizes the center ring and holds one’s attention from beginning to end. Wryly wringing crinkle-browed humor from FDR’s deadpan speech and singsong cadence, puffing away on his trademark cigarette holder and dropping ashes wherever he settles, with his upper teeth protruding when he smiles and his eyes twinkling when his robust sexual appetite surfaces, Mr. Murray channels the enormous humanity and popularity of the only U.S. president to be elected three times in a row with quotable one-liners and enchanting grace. He’s proud when he shows off his stamp collection, touching in his desperation for rare moments of privacy and relaxation, wickedly amusing as he admonishes Bayer aspirin for his sinus infections, and exasperating when he flies through the woods in his convertible with specially designed controls on the steering wheel and the Secret Service in hot pursuit. He’s especially moving in the poignant late-night candor he shares with the king, pouring out the whiskey and putting him at ease while
sharing his own flaws as both a leader and a man. The film delves beneath the arch reserve of the royals, revealing them as real people, too.

In the truth about how Eleanor was betrayed, making peace with her separation and remaining the first lady in name only; in the bond forged by two men whose alliance would ultimately defeat the stormclouds of global war; in the boundless charm exerted by a great man over a world in panic, there is revelation in every frame of Hyde Park on Hudson. It’s clearly intended for the masses that fell in love with The King’s Speech, but it adds an extra dimension of its own to world events. In beauty, tone, technical achievement and cinematic artistry on every level, Hyde Park on Hudson is a movie unto itself—funny, believable, historic and hugely entertaining.

rreed@observer.com

Running Time 95 minutes

Written by Richard Nelson

Directed by Roger Michell

Starring Bill Murray, Laura Linney
and Olivia Williams

Eric Schmidt digs Roosevelt Island. (Matt Chaban)

It wasn't all politicos and power brokers at the ribbon cutting for the FDR Four Freedoms Park gathered at the tip of Roosevelt Island earlier this week. Cornell had a strong showing, too, since their new tech campus will be the park's neighbor to the north within a few years. Cornell president and jockey David Skorton was there, and so was Eric Schmidt, the Google executive chairman who is serving on a three-man advisory panel for the campus.

Wearing a natty tweed blazer and jaunty blue scarf, Mr. Schmidt was wandering just south of the sloping lawn, near the massive bust of the 32nd president that is a centerpiece of the park, when The Observer caught up with him. "I would say first it's probably the most beautiful new public structures in America today, it's so visually arresting," Mr. Schmidt said. He thought is was a stunning space both to look at and to look out from.

It turns out Cornell was not the only reason for Mr. Schmidt to be on the island this lovely day. He is also a bit of a history buff, and he has a particular fondness for Franklin Roosevelt. "If you study FDR, he embodies the principles of America in a way that is for time immemorial," Mr. Schmidt explained. "I've been using his Four Freedoms in my speeches for a while, because if you study it, it's hard to understand in the context of what it represented in America at the time, but the ideas are remarkable and enduring. We face similar challenges today, to religious tolerance, freedom, etc. In many way, it's more applicable today then before."

So this may be a great space for the city, and for the entire nation, but it will also be a huge amenity for the new tech campus, as well. "If you think about it from the Cornell New York Tech perspective, this is sort of our neighbor," Mr. Schmidt said. "For the quality life of the students, just think of what this represents."

With so much going on on the island, the park, the school, maybe a water taxi dock, some new housing to the north at some point, what does the future hold? "It'll be more gentrified, it will be more upscale," Mr. Schmidt admitted.

Is that a good thing?

"It is the nature of New York," he responded. "Roosevelt Island will become a premier destination. Simply because of the sum of everything, the park, the new development, the residential, this will become one of those places everyone wants to be."

And you know that's the truth. After all, it comes straight from the mouth of Google.

I'm FDR and I approve of this message. (Diane Bondareff)

It was not all somber speeches at the ribbon cutting for Four Freedoms Park yesterday.

Naturally, this was an event honoring one the nation's greatest presidents, so there was bound to be some politics in the mix, not just quaint platitudes about FDR and recastings of the Four Freedoms speech as each speaker tried to rhetorically show up the others. What The Observer was not counting on was what sounded like a full-on stump speech for President Obama at the end of Bill Clinton's remarks from the dais in the park at the tip of Roosevelt Island. He did everything but call out the president by name:

Perhaps, ironically, it is altogether fitting that this day was delayed until a time when we knew we could never take the four freedoms for granted, until a time when we, too, would have to decide whether to build a country that benefits the many and not just the few, a time when we, too, would have to shoulder our share of the responsibility from freeing people from fear and want, and we would have to remind ourselves that the freedom of religion requires mutual respect and not intimidation from those who worship differently from us and inspires us to insist that they accord us the same rights.

This is a wonderful day for our country, a day to remember that the words Franklin Roosevelt spoke so long ago still mean something today, partly because we need bold, persistent experimentation, partly because we need innovation and also because we need never to forget that we will never be free of these fears until we are one community of shared prosperity, shared responsibility, and a shared sense of citizenship.

Granted the former president and Harlem hotshot was not the only one to use the opportunity to add a little politics to all the ceremonial speechifying. Mayor Bloomberg spent much of his speech talking not about the park but all the great things the new Cornell Tech campus he helped set up would bring to Roosevelt Island. Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo took the opportunity to praise the passage last year of gay marriage (in which he played a crucial part).

"Today it is the legacy of this great state to strive to continue that crusade and to build on that progressive tradition" of FDR, Governor Cuomo said. "I believe this state’s success last year in passing a new law that achieved marriage equality for all New Yorkers, that ended discrimination, that established a new civil right, I believe that the marriage equality law followed in FDR’s vision, and I believe that marriage equality law has inspired other states to try to pass similar laws, causing New York to finally lead a progressive movement once again. The crusade continues in New York once again."

Can you blame these guys though? Put a politician in front of a mic, and what do you expect to get?

Former Ambassador William Vanden Heuvel led the charge to finally open Four Freedoms Park. (Diane Donfareff/FFP)

Smile! (Diane Bondareff)

It took 40 years, some 14,600 days, between the creation of Roosevelt Island to the ribbon cutting today for Four Freedoms Park, a memorial to the 32nd president at the island’s southern tip. Today was the greatest of all those days, not simply because Louis Kahn’s dramatic, elemental vision for the park had finally been realized, but also it was a beautiful day, one full of promise, just like the memorial itself.

The bright blue sky, the beaming sun, the crisp fall air, the weather truly was suited to this place. Mayor Bloomberg joked with Governor Cuomo before the ceremony began that he had sent all the rainy weather that had been expected upstate, to which the governor responded that was fine, he would just bottle the water and sell it back to us.

But beyond the levity of friends, families and dignitaries, beyond the excitement of one of New York’s longest-suffering projects being realized, there was an twinge of trauma. The weight of history hung heavily on this place. Seasoned politicos and power brokers jammed the folding seats arrayed on Kahn’s sloping emerald lawn. They were all too well aware of the challenges facing the nation, in many ways as great as when Franklin Roosevelt invoked his Four Freedoms almost seven decades ago.

They live on in the nation, but perhaps nowhere more than on this spot at the tip of an island in the East River, not terribly far from where Roosevelt grew up.

Tom Brokaw felt the strain in his opening remarks. “At a time when we are all wondering about our own resolve as American citizens, when too many ideas that are small and divide us suffocate the old ideas that were big and united us, this was a very big idea, the four freedoms,” he intoned.

“We gather not just to honor the four freedoms but to recommit to their place in the lives of everyone, everywhere in the world.”

Mayor Bloomberg felt the strain as well, though he believed it a call to action. “It is my hope that all of those who visit this park will be inspired to take up the challenge that president Roosevelt left for us, of securing and protecting these four freedoms,” he said.

How could such a simple seeming design continue to convey the depth and breadth of the American progressive movement, of FDR himself, across the span of decades, across generations, realities? Governor Cuomo gave all due accord to the project’s architect.

“This memorial is also a tribute to Louis Khan and his vision, that he could design a memorial that would lay dormant for years and years and be picked up and it would be just as vital and current as the day he drew it,” the governor said.

Yet none of the speakers grasped the challenges, both past, present and future, quite like former President Bill Clinton. He even saw a certain symmetry in the horrible delays that had kept the project from being built for so long. He recalled his experience of dedicating the FDR memorial on the banks of the Potomac in 1997, the feeling and hope that had instilled in him, and how those feelings were now mixed by the challenges that once again faced the nation.

"We have gained a lot of freedom, in civil rights and women's rights, the ability around the world to minimize human suffering with prosperity and healthcare, to minimize the cost of human tragedy," President Clinton said. We have again been tested by fear, and too many of our neighbors here at home struggle to find freedom from want. This park should always remind us that those dreams are worth pursuing."

"Perhaps, ironically, it is altogether fitting that this day was delayed until a time when we knew we could never take the four freedoms for granted."

After the event, Ambassador William Vanden Heuvel, the man who saw this project through, was mobbed by well wishers—his ovation before the red-white-and-blue ribbon cutting outshone all the famous politicians who went before him. Not surprisingly, he had a more optimistic view of the 13-ton granite blocks and rows of Linden trees he helped midwife on this site.

"I think it's for the good times and the bad," the ambassador said. "Franklin Roosevelt was a great president because he gave hope to people."

For anyone who is fortunate enough to visit the park, in good times or in bad, looking out on the city from one of its greatest and most singular vantage points, it would be impossible to take anything for granted. "I think this is the greatest view in the entire city," Mr. Vanden Heuvel said.

Even the Marine Corps. Marching Band, which closed out the dedication ceremony, was looking ahead, hopefully, but also with a reminder of struggle. Their song? "Good Times Are Here Again." Staring out over the waters of the East River, Midtown, Queens, Brooklyn, the bridges, the world, all glistening beyond, the crowd could only hope so.

Shiny! (NYC DOT)

Upper East Side residents can cross safely over the FDR Drive again, after the Department of Transportation opened the newly enhanced East 78th Street pedestrian bridge today.

The old bridge, which was built in the 1940s, was demolished last July due to the Department of Transport listing it's condition as "poor" in its biennial inspection.

The renovation cost the Parks & Recreation Department a tidy $11.9 million to complete. In all, some $5 billion has been budgeted by the city in the last decade to restore bridges in various states of disrepair, such as the Brooklyn Bridge (not including the new park) and the Wards Island Bridge.

"We're closing the gap between New Yorkers and the East River Esplanade," DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said. "Creating safer access to the waterfront for generations to come."

The new bridge is fully ADA compliant, with ramps both sides and will give weekend strollers a nice new vista of John Jay Park. The Department of Transport say it's a "fresh design, that enchances the surrounding streetscape", to us, it just looks like a 80 ton steel bridge. But, for $11 million, some 'enhancing the streetscape' won't go amiss, what the heck.

sduffy@observer.com