Fantastic news about The King’s Speech. Its 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay, mean it’s just two short of the all-time record. The film has also been a box-office smash, taking over $57 million in America and over £18 million in the UK.
Why has the film been such a critical and commercial success? It has plenty going for it: great direction, good performances, gripping story, witty dialogue. But then, so did Made in Dagenham and that hasn’t been anything like as successful.
The key is in the subject matter. Our royal family is still a subject of universal fascination, practically the only one we have left. American audiences may develop the occasional crush on lower-class Brits — Michael Caine, Russell Brand, Piers Morgan — but their first love will always be for the upper classes. Witness the success of the Harry Potter franchise, a romantic celebration of our public schools, or the recent popularity of Downton Abbey, the most acclaimed Masterpiece Theatre series since Pride and Prejudice. Even the Bond franchise hobbles on, with its suave, Old Etonian central character. In America, if not in Britain, everyone loves a Lord.
In the case of The King’s Speech, writer David Seidler’s masterstroke was to make the character of George VI so vulnerable. He may be an emotionally repressed toff given to outbursts of vicious snobbery, but his speech impediment makes him lovable. By the end, when he has to deliver a speech to the nation, rallying his subjects at the outbreak of the second world war, every person in the cinema is rooting for him. He’s no longer a member of a desiccated ruling class that’s out of touch with ordinary people.
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