Lion in Winter is a 1968 classic depicting the 12th century love conflict between Henry II (O'Toole) of England and his formidable wife, the deposed Eleanor of Aquitaine (Hepburn) whom he had kept imprisoned for ten years. With King Henry getting conspicuously full of years, the crucial time to find a successor to the throne was met. One Christmas (1183), the three sons with whom to convene the matter were summoned, though the king had already settled his resolve secretly on John's (the youngest) account to be the official heir. On the other hand, the disparaging Eleanor would act in her best authority to beat Henry down with a very much unchained aversion toward his preference and building up Richard 'The Lion-hearted' (Hopkins) instead, menacing her husband's subtle plans. The other son occasionally stood in the way to neutralize the steaming air between the apparently irreconcilable parties so as to mellow the ticking span for weighing options where he conspired with both sides to earn the king and queen's favor headed for the crown.
Individual attempts grew pathetic as the shattered family lost control of power, subjugating one another. Such angle was vividly elaborated through the film at the characters' exchange of stabbing lines, evident of seething madness beneath their seemingly tranquil civility.
While the atmosphere was heavily charged with the torn, scheming couple's intellectual fits over whose side must triumph, Eleanor's jealousy on allowing Henry and his courtesan kiss brought twitches on a wife's real feelings about a husband who had long vanished from her presence. This eventually made her pretense hurled more against him, claiming that she was fervently determined to have the Aquitaine back and wouldn't stoop low upon the king's equating proposition.
It was turning out that the complicated personalities among the siblings took root on their parents' relentless discord, leaving them no choice other than to bear the family's irrational undertakings with divided, favored ends to justify all wanton means deemed proper. The king and queen's stormy affair went to further bounds, having themselves armed by the children's weaknesses as they marched up against each other, the consequences of whose acts had attained poignancy prior to the unthinkable twist but which, stayed in one setting wherewith the resolution would later be sought.
When it had to come to an end after tiresome factions that reached the point Henry II caught himself off guard at John's declining loyalty and unpleasant indifference from the other two, he had thought of deserving to disown his sons, nearly cutting them down by himself with his own sword until he was reprieved by a sudden understanding of the 'good' that used to be, somewhere in his distant memory: a flash of harmony and connection, especially at the view of Eleanor standing still next to solitude in her eyes among their children's distorted frame.
The heart of the matter sends in the truth to culmination no one would have thought possible when Eleanor had finally admitted, with everything else behind, that Henry was all she ever wanted back. The once was hidden, burning passion for Henry, though somewhat ironic, emerged the most wonderful reason for her desperate raging all along. Hence, after such revelation which took everyone by utter surprise, the lions managed to part ways with tamed hearts after the long winter.
The movie has that overall feel of something relevant taking place in the modern day basic community--one that's very much attributive of marriage and family ties over the undoubtedly much-anticipated historical conquests of the ancient English monarchs. It had been remade into a 2003-version produced for the highly-acclaimed performances by Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart (under Andrei Konchalovsky's direction) with the same exact flow of ingenious scripting as the old one.
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