This was by far my favorite Flora’s Friday Film showing I’ve attended this year. I’ve heard good things about it, but I’m kind of lacking in the movie-watching department. This film came out when I was in high school and had rave reviews, but I never got around to watching it. In fact, I was looking at the list of Best Picture Academy Award winners, and before this, I had only ever seen five – and two of those I watched for the first time in the last year. I’ve enjoyed all of the ones I’ve watched, but I guess they wouldn’t be award-winning if they weren’t good.

Perhaps the most memorable piece of information I had about this film before watching it was that the film rating was bumped up due to the profanity of a particular scene in which curse words were used. When watching the movie, I felt like it didn’t deserve this rating. Sure there was some cursing throughout some parts of the film, but they weren’t really derogatory or violent. Besides the potential language issues, I felt like this was definitely a movie that a family could watch together.

I don’t know how many cinematic liberties were taken in the film, but I enjoyed the story. The film depicts the personal growth of King George VI as he transitioned into power. The beginning starts with a clear depiction of his struggle with speaking. His wife finds an unconventional speech therapist and over time, he opens up about his personal life which in turn helps him psychologically overcome the speech impediment. What I perhaps appreciated the most about the film is that it wasn’t a complete victory and happy ending. It wasn’t like Lionel was able to amazingly get rid of the stutter – it was a long process with setbacks that led to clear improvement, but wasn’t perfect.

Overall, I thought the film taught me some things and reminded me of some things that I don’t often think twice about. For one, I learned that kings didn’t actually have to be known as the names they were born with. Blame my primary and secondary education, but I had no idea that kings would or could assume new names when taking the throne. Another thing that the film reminded me of was the improvement of technology. During the final king’s speech of the film, King George VI is in a room with Lionel and is trying to get comfortable working through a potentially underprepared speech. After it’s over, he exits to take a picture of him sitting at a desk for the radio broadcast, as if that’s how the whole speech was delivered. Thinking at how things are done now, this wouldn’t happen. Things are now live-streamed with potentially multiple cameras, and if he had been as exposed as many public figures are now, I don’t know how history would have panned out.

The film also touched on some pivotal childhood memories that shaped who ‘Bertie’ was. His experiences as someone naturally left-handed and the even more traumatic physical hardships he endured were heartbreaking. It does take works like these to remember that kings, especially the more recent ones, were really just like all of us. I would definitely watch this film again, but probably with subtitles this time. This was really an uplifting movie that put me in a good mood after watching it, and would definitely recommend it to anyone unsure about the film’s premise or acclaim.