Poignant and exciting

Rating: Null/10 (5 September 2011)

This past year's Academy Award winner for Best Picture, The King's Speech, looked to me like another boring exercise in British stuffiness. I was wrong. I don't think that there has ever been another film about the British royal family that has been as intimate and emotionally absorbing. For once, the royals were portrayed as human beings. Even 2006's The Queen, featuring Helen Mirren's portrayal of the current queen, for which she won Best Actress, felt to me like a cold and distant portrayal of an inhuman old woman cut off from the world. Colin Firth's depiction of King George VI (the current queen's father) was incredibly poignant, and it earned him a hugely deserved Oscar for Best Actor. Read my full review at: http://themuddoctor.blogspot.com/2011/08/kings-speech.html