What do you get if you send a Marxist to a film about a king (particularly if that film is clearly not unfavorable to the king)? One, you get a late critic—I missed about 10 minutes of this film about a king, George VI, who had a speech impediment. Two, you get a lot of poisonous criticism from this leftist critic: What? This movie is really about a king with a speech impediment? That's it? What about the poor people of England? What about the great 20th-century wars that killed millions of poor people? What about the colonial oppression and capitalist exploitation? No, we have to sit through a movie that entirely concerns a rich man's effort to overcome his bloody stuttering! And we have to see this king, this man of power and wealth, as a hero, as someone we, the poor and downtrodden, are supposed to identify with? What a lot of nonsense! England should be screaming: "Death to the king; he ain't no human being!"

The film is not even interesting as a work of art. Granted, Colin Firth (the king), Helena Bonham Carter (the king's wife), Guy Pearce (the king's brother), and Geoffrey Rush (the king's speech instructor) are sound actors, and there are one or two scenes that are beautiful (the king's brother landing a small airplane in a field, the dance of sun rays as the king walks with his speech instructor through a green park). But all of these talented actors and the two or so moments of beauty are wasted on a movie that is weakly written and directed, and has no real reason to exist. So that's what happens when you send a Marxist critic to a movie about King George VI. recommended