“The King’s Speech” caught my interest because it’s a time and place in history that I’ve been exploring a fair bit lately. With Netflix’s “The Crown” and Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk”. Particularly with “The King’s Speech” and “The Crown”, It’s been very interesting to observe and think about Britain’s institution of the Monarchy, something that as an American I can say I find an interesting and foreign concept.

There was a line of the movie that struck me last night, when David asks his brother “don’t I have rights?” Similarly, later in the movie, the newly crowned King George VI makes a very interesting point to Lionel. “I’m a… a King, where’s my power?” he asks,  “Can I… can I form a government? Can I… can I l-levy a tax, declare a… a war? No!” What these two lines suggest to me is a very interesting perspective on the function of the Monarchy in a more modern Britain. They are expected not to directly interfere in the government – after all, in a modern society, for a birthright position to hold real political power might be archaic. But Archie continues to Lionel about this nature of his position “And yet I am the seat of all authority. Why? Because… the nation believes that when I s… I speak, I speak for them – but I can’t speak.”

While the movie makes a powerful and poignant picture of the King overcoming this adversity, and this is certainly not to be dismissed, I find it very interesting to think of how the role of the Monarch in Britain as evolved over time, and how it continues to justify its existence. Where before they were a true figurehead of power, now they are a voice through which the Commonwealth can, at least in theory, take solace and project a national identity onto. In my opinion, this makes the challenge overcome by King George in the film all the more impressive. The one thing he truly struggled to do was, at that point, the one thing he was asked to do.