An icy ‘Winter’ chill returns

“The Lion in Winter,” which this time stars Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close as Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, is a faithful remake of the 1968 adaptation of the 1966 play by the late James Goldman (brother of screenwriter William). Like the first movie -- and, shot for shot, the movie premiering Sunday on Showtime is very much like the first movie -- “The Lion in Winter” is one of those projects that couldn’t escape comparisons to its source material if it hopped a freight car and took up the harmonica.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “The Lion in Winter” won three Oscars in 1968 (Katharine Hepburn for actress, Goldman’s screenplay and John Barry’s score) and was nominated for four more. But most of those tuning in will likely remain unaware of or uninterested in the original film, which inspired its own grumblings when it first came out. Pauline Kael accused it of having “too much integrity,” and disliked the movie’s sincere, weepy approach to what on the stage had been a campy melodrama about England’s first dysfunctional royal family.

The Plantagenets, history confirms, made the Windsors look like the Von Trapps, mid-medley. (“Henry II Plantagenet, the very first of that name and race, and the very greatest King that England ever knew, but withal the most unfortunate,” wrote Winston Churchill in 1675 -- the 17th century forbear of the World War II prime minister -- “his death being imputed to those only to whom himself had given life, his ungracious sons.”)

But now that the original play is a dim memory, the Katharine Hepburn, Peter O’Toole, Anthony Hopkins version might as well be Elizabethan. Conforming to modern sensibilities, the production design is less Zeffirelli tours a DeMille set and more Hallmark goes to Disneyland; which is fitting, because executive producers Robert Halmi Sr. and Jr. are the chairman and CEO of Hallmark Prods., respectively.

The actors look fresher and better groomed, and director Andrei Konchalovsky doesn’t explore the capacities of the zoom lens with the zeal of his predecessor. (The zoom shot being the signature shot of 1968.) One of the few notable differences between the original and the remake is an opening title card setting the historical scene -- that, and a battle scene featuring Eleanor (Close) in full armor. At first, the title card struck me as sort of condescending, as though audiences today couldn’t be expected to know a Plantagenet from an egglant Parmesan. Then I was grateful for the refresher.

The story takes place over a two-day period on Christmas in 1138. The powerful King Henry (Stewart), whose holdings include large territories throughout France, is anxious to name a successor to ensure the survival of his empire. He grants a brief holiday furlough to his wife, the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine, a former Queen of France, whom he has imprisoned for leading his older sons in revolts against him; and reunites his three estranged sons, Richard (Andrew Howard), Geoffrey (John Light) and John (Rafe Spall).

Together again for the first time in years, everybody kicks into high scheming mode, forming treacherous temporary alliances among themselves and with the cunning young King Philip of France (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), whose sister Alais (Yuliya Vysotskaya) is Eleanor’s ward, Henry’s mistress and either Richard or John’s fiancee, depending on who gets the crown. (“The only pawn,” as she notes, among queens, kings and knights.)

It’s a swampy family dynamic; primordial and oozy. Richard is loved by his mother Eleanor, but not by Phillip, whom he loves. (And anyway, Richard doesn’t trust her, and with good reason.) John, the family idiot, is loved by Henry -- though it’s hard to see why. Nobody loves Geoffrey, which makes him sad and slitheringly dangerous. But Eleanor and Henry have the original love-hate relationship: They fell in love; she ditched the king of France for him, not yet king and 11 years her junior. He fell in love with someone else; she started a civil war led by her legendary gay warrior son. There’s betrayal by the barrel, simmering family resentments, wounded inner children, shades of incest. Look past the costume and the attempts at serious drama, and “The Lion in Winter” is “Plantagenet Place.”

The anachronistic colloquialisms and attitudes are peppered throughout. I’m guessing that back when the play premiered in 1966, well before they passed that law requiring every movie to contain the lines “Where is she?,” “We have to talk,” “Don’t do this” and “Let go of me,” the disconnect between 20th century attitudes and 12th century props and wardrobe must have come across as very funny. Then again, maybe I’m underestimating today’s viewing public. At a recent screening of “Troy,” which also stars O’Toole as a king with problem children, the audience hooted with appreciative laughter in all the unintended places.

Save for a problematic line here and there, the script is unchanged. (It’s one thing for O’Toole as King Henry to tell his insecure young mistress, “in my time I’ve known contessas, milkmaids, courtesans, novices, whores, gypsies, jades and little boys ... but nowhere in God’s western world found anyone to love but you,” and quite another for Patrick Stewart to fail to omit one of those categories.) Then again, nowhere in the original does a nipple make an appearance, as one does here. And a rather lukewarm love scene between Richard the Lionhearted (then, Anthony Hopkins in his first film; now, Howard) and Philip is updated to include a kiss and not just a mere squeeze of the hand.

Despite their daunting predecessors, the performers are uniformly strong. Close knows how to suffer jealous agonies like nobody’s business, and we know enough to fear her when she’s scorned. Stewart lacks O’Toole’s unhinged, adventurous quality, but his solidity gives Eleanor’s loss, if not a more poignant quality, at least a more galling one. At the very heart of “The Lion in Winter” is romantic comedy in the Howard Hawks vein -- a glimpse into the future of Susan and David, had “Bringing Up Baby” taken place 1,000 years earlier and ended badly -- that is infinitely more satisfying than the kind that passes for both romantic and comedic today.

Henry and Eleanor are formidable sparring opponents. (“The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings,” says Henry when Eleanor threatens him with uniting his sons against him. “There’ll be pork in the treetops come morning,” she replies.) And when he sends her back to jail after the holidays, having failed to resolve anything, their mood is as light and sporting as Wile E. Coyote and Sam the Sheepdog signing off after a long day’s foe-ing. At its best, “The Lion in Winter” is still good Freudian fun.

*

‘The Lion in Winter’

Where: Showtime

When: Premieres 7:30 p.m. Sunday

Rating: The network has rated the film TV-14VSLD (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14, with advisories for violence, sex, coarse language and suggestive dialogue).

Glenn Close...Eleanor of Aquitaine

Patrick Stewart...Henry II

Andrew Howard...Richard

John Light...Geoffrey

Rafe Spall...John

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers...Philip

Executive producers Robert Halmi Sr., Robert Halmi Jr., Martin Poll, Patrick Stewart and Wendy Neuss-Stewart. Director Andrei Konchalovsky. Writer James Goldman.