'The King's Speech': The best film of 2010?

Critics are almost universally raving about this little-known story of King George VI and his debilitating stutter. Are a multitude of Oscars on the way?

The mostly-true but little-known story of a stuttering king stars Colin Firth as King George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth the queen mother.
(Image credit: Weinstein Co.)

The Thanksgiving weekend box office may have been ruled by Harry Potter and Disney's Tangled, but director Tom Hooper's The King's Speech won a different prize: It earned the most money per theater this year, albeit at only four theaters. More importantly, it won near-universal critical acclaim. Is this film, featuring Colin Firth as a stutter-plagued Duke of York in the 1930s, the best movie released this year? (Watch the trailer for The King's Speech)

The movie is fun, and fantastic: The King's Speech is certainly "one of the best of the year," and its "sublime" performers "should prep some Oscar speeches," says Matt Stevens in E! Online. The premise sounds like a "boring Brit drama," but when Firth and his unorthodox speech therapist, played by Geoffrey Rush, "circle and spar," it's "as rousing and nail-biting as a climactic boxing match" — "Rocky with royalty."

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