"The King's Speech" is a delightful, intelligent, and beautifully acted entertainment. It should not, however, have won the Academy Award for Best Picture for one very simple reason: It's not a movie. It's a fairly high-budget play.
Strip away everything--absolutely everything--from "The King's Speech" except for the scenes between the Duke of York/George VI (Colin Firth) and Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), and the movie loses none of its emotional impact. The entire story could be told with two actors in minimal costumes in a black-box theater. For a set, get a couple of chairs, a couch, a desk; for props, a tape recorder, a victrola, a microphone, and not much else. Virtually none of the story's major plot points happen outside of Logue's office. The only one that comes immediately to mind is a scene between the Duke of York and King Edward VII, wherein the latter essentially admits that he has no intention of either fulfilling his kingly duties or confronting the growing threat posed by Hitler's Germany. It's a good scene, but one that could easily be summarized by the Duke in conversation with Logue.
We have nothing against the idea of filming plays and showing them on cinema screens: For those not lucky enough to live in New York or other big-time theater towns, this may be the best or only way to see great theater. But the Academy Awards should recognize those filmmakers who have made major contributions to film. "The King's Speech" should have won a Tony.
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