Art House War Movie

In typically-delayed fashion, I at last saw The King's Speech. As I've pointed out, I can't usually watch a movie in a theatre because if people around me talk (which they always do now) I will kill them. Actually, really kill them. That's why I wait to watch on cable.

In any case, it may seem like there's not much to add in terms of praise for The King's Speech. It won four Oscars and got universally good reviews. The movie also did extraordinarily well at the box office, much better than should probably be expected for what is more or less an 'art house' production. My insight is that I think I know why it did so well.

It's a war movie.

By this, I don't just mean that it takes place around the time of World War II, I mean in structure and content it's a war movie along the lines of say, To Hell and Back. There are only so many stories and archetypes of stories in the world. The question is always how to recombine them and how to develop characters that are fresh to a genre. In terms of war movies, there are lots that go something like this: An average guy finds the wheels of fate and history churning around him, against his will he ends up getting swept up and drafted into the conflict, no one thinks he's going to be able to hack it, he wears glasses and is clumsy and can't shoot straight, and he has lots of trouble dealing with his tough-as-nails drill sergeant. But, in the end, when the chips are down, it's this seemingly pathetic guy who ends up saving his whole platoon.

In essence, that's The King's Speech. Structurally speaking, you could actually say that, though he only makes an appearance via newsreel, the villain of the piece is none other than Hitler himself. Very tellingly (and astutely), the screenplay even has the newly-crowned King George VI observe that Hitler speaks 'rather well,' a direct contrast to the King himself.

Kudos also to British cinematographer Danny Cohen for his great use of hard light and some of the most effective smoke machine sequences in recent memory.