This is his first major film since becoming King, though royal documentaries have become oddly ubiquitous. Once a rare event \u2013 the BBC<\/a> and ITV\u2019s fly-on-the-palace-wall Royal Family in 1969 was watched by more than half of Britain \u2013 they now arrive in a steady stream. Take your pick from Harry and Meghan\u2019s Netflix output<\/a>, Channel 5\u2019s Saturday night specials, Prince William<\/a> revealing his plans for the monarchy on Apple TV. <\/p>\n Charles\u2019s offering, lavishly shot by Human Planet director Nicolas Brown, is a languorous 90 minutes, with narration from Oscar-winning actor Kate Winslet<\/a>. \u201cWhat is the opposite of harmony?\u201d she asks at the start. \u201cWe could argue it\u2019s a disconnection\u2026 like being cut off from each other and from nature.\u201d<\/p>\n The film positions Charles as a misunderstood prophet vindicated by history. At 21, he warned about pollution\u2019s \u201ccancerous forms\u201d when few public figures discussed such things. By the 1980s, when he went organic at Highgrove, the mockery was fierce. The Sun called him \u201cA-loon with his worms\u201d; The Times dismissed organic farming as \u201csome kind of drop-out for hippies\u201d; even The Archers piled on in 1985, with the farmers of Ambridge scoffing at his methods \u2013 \u201cWhat do you mean organic? You mean with no chemicals, just lots and lots of manure?\u201d<\/p>\n The moment that truly \u201chaunted\u201d him, as Winslet puts it, came in a 1986 ITV interview when Charles admitted he liked to \u201ctalk to the plants. Very important to talk to them. They respond.\u201d The Irish Independent declared he was \u201cgoing completely off his trolley\u201d. The film mines these clips for maximum effect: see, he was right all along, the narrative is at pains to say. As Charles explains his philosophy: \u201cIt all boils down to the fact that we are actually nature ourselves: we are a part of it, not apart from it, which is really how things have been presented for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n The King at Dumfries House during the filming for his new documentary (The King\u2019s Foundation\/Prime Video)<\/p>\n Where the documentary works best is in its quieter moments. Charles at Highgrove, noting the cuckoos that have vanished over 45 years: \u201cYou never hear them now, and there used to be grasshoppers and the place used to hum with that wonderful sound.\u201d When asked if he\u2019s worried about the state of the world, he replies with pained resignation: \u201cOf course. It\u2019s been my main motivation for a long, long time.\u201d Later on, he says: \u201cI can only do what I can do, which isn\u2019t very much.\u201d There\u2019s something affecting about watching him tend his chickens at \u201cCluckingham Palace\u201d, collecting eggs while they strut around him. The bees get their moment too, at HMP Bristol, where prisoners learn beekeeping because \u201cthe natural world will teach them about relationships, how to think as an ecosystem\u201d. It\u2019s all very earnest.<\/p>\n Maybe by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil, there might be a little more awareness<\/p>\n King Charles<\/p>\n Less endearing is the relentless evangelism for \u201charmony\u201d. The word gets such a thorough workout that it begins to feel less like a philosophy than a device designed to hypnotise you. The film\u2019s central thesis is that there\u2019s an innate harmony and interconnectedness binding all things together, supported by what Winslet calls \u201csacred geometry or the grammar of harmony\u201d. Patterns from \u201cmicroscopic organisms to the human body up to the eight-year-long shapes made by Venus\u201d are \u201cunited by natural mathematics\u201d with \u201ca profound effect on our emotions and our wellbeing”. This conflation of science with mystical beliefs was the sort of thing for which Charles\u2019s 2010 book Harmony was criticised. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Charles photographed in the arboretum at Highgrove House (Millie Pilkington\/Buckingham Palace\/Prime Video)<\/p>\n From here, the film takes us on a world tour of harmony in action. At Dumfries House \u2013 the Palladian mansion in southwest Scotland that Charles helped save in 2007 \u2013 the King\u2019s Foundation now trains 10,000 people a year in traditional skills and sustainable living, revitalising what had been an economically struggling area. In Afghanistan, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation has been clearing rubble as well as providing water, electricity and healthcare since 2006, and remarkably continues operating despite the Taliban\u2019s return in 2021. <\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Poundbury, Charles\u2019s housing development on Duchy of Cornwall land outside Dorchester, built according to his architectural principles with mixed housing, traditional design and green spaces within walking distance. \u201cI tried to demonstrate how harmony in practice could be made to work rather than just talk about all these things,\u201d he says. \u201cTo see: is there something here to learn from?\u201d <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet watch as Charles speaks during a ceremony marking the King\u2019s Foundation\u2019s 35th anniversary in January 2025 (PA)<\/p>\n The important message at the heart of this film is just about enough to keep the hagiographic tendencies if not at bay, at least subdued. This is despite plenty of backslapping and cheerleading from talking heads such as Patrick Holden (Sustainable Food Trust founder) and Tony Juniper (an ecologist and author). Though Finding Harmony: A King\u2019s Vision feels overlong, in desperate need of a pruning here and there, it is a powerful call to action, and the pull of the King will guarantee it gets heard. <\/p>\n Of course the timing of all this matters. Donald Trump pushes the lie that climate change is a \u201ccon job<\/a>\u201d, so there\u2019s value in Charles stating basic truths: \u201cPeople just don\u2019t understand that it\u2019s not just climate change but it\u2019s also biodiversity loss<\/a>. We\u2019re actually destroying our means of survival all the time,\u201d he says, before hoping plaintively. \u201cMaybe by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil, there might be a little more awareness.\u201d Given the state we\u2019re all in, that flicker of possibility feels worth holding onto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-283686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/66c89c6595c0f3692865480844de9161Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzY5NzAxNTg0-2.83238127.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/01KG2MAMD5X1K03T15QGC0SAQ2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Meryl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/01KG2PA49KTMT9PBHPQZASYE1M.jpeg\")
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