The King’s Speech: A nonfiction film takes best picture

Review of The King’s Speech written by David Seidler and directed by Tom Hooper
Rating *****

I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you to see this film. If a best picture win doesn’t do it then nothing will. I am glad that another nonfiction film won, though. This year’s Oscars had four nonfiction films in the running for best picture: The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Fighter, and The Social Network. I’ve seen seven of the ten nominated films. This was the best of the seven I have seen. The three films I haven’t seen yet are The Black Swan and the other two nominated nonfiction films. What can I say? I’ve been busy.

As good as Colin Firth was, Geoffrey Rush was equally as good. But since I haven’t seen The Fighter I can’t say that he was robbed of a best supporting actor win. That will have to wait until the DVD for The Fighter rolls around. Same for 127 Hours, which will probably be the next nonfiction film I see.

There was nothing fancy about this film. I barely noticed a soundtrack. Most of the film took place indoors, in sparsely decorated rooms. And there was zero action. This was a film driven by story and the actors who presented that story. So the credit goes to writer David Seidler, who has given all of us older writers hope, and the two main actors Firth and Rush. I know Tom Hooper won best director, but this is one of those cases where I think it should have went to a director of one of the other nominated films, specifically Inception (How was he not even nonimated?).

This story takes place in the late 1930s, but thanks to technology I’m able to bring direct to you the actual speech that served as the climax for this film. It’s a little over five and a half minutes long, but it’s certainly worth listening to a few minutes of it to get a feek for the difficulty he had as well as the importance of the content.