Given that England's George III ran around pissing blue from porphyry, his great-great-great grandson, George VI, got off pretty easy with just a stutter. And certainly Nicholas Hytner's The Madness of King George (1994) is a lot more substantive than this precious bid for kneejerk Oscars. No doubt Colin Firth will get at least a nomination for his portrayal of the title monarch, who finds himself on the throne and in front of a radio microphone when his bullying father, George V, dies and his elder brother, Edward VII (Guy Pearce), abdicates for the love of a not-so-good woman. Likewise, Geoffrey Rush will get a nod as Lionel Logue, the Australian speech therapist without portfolio or good breeding who uses unorthodox methods to whip George VI into shape when the Nazis threaten to invade. The message from director Tom Hooper (The Damned United) seems to be that neither birth nor background nor any other qualification matters when you're leading the country — or treating those who do.
