Sandy
The multiple-award winning film, which has bagged 12 Oscar nominations, deals with universal themes but has an anti-Nazi stance as a major draw.
It is the king’s to lose. Dual victories by The King’s Speech at a pair of closely watched awards ceremonies have put the film on track to win a best picture Oscar.
Recently, the movie, about a stammering British monarch and his rhetorical struggle with the Nazis, won the ensemble cast award from the Screen Actors Guild, as well as an individual award for its star, Colin Firth. The film also picked up a prize for its director, Tom Hooper, from the Directors Guild of America, the previous day.
The movie had already been named the year’s outstanding film by the Producers Guild of America, and picked up 12 Oscar nominations, to lead a field that includes True Grit, The Fighter and The Social Network, among others.
While the film is small, with a budget estimated at only about $15 million, and its performance at the box-office is still relatively modest—it reached $72 million after more than two months in theatre—it has so far gone down like a plateful of comfort food.
Its themes are familiar (friendship and the overcoming of personal demons). Its story is uplifting. (All turns out well.) And its anti-Nazi stance is a draw. (Oscar voters have been perennially attracted to films like The English Patient, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List and The Reader.)
But the Oscar ballots are not in the mail yet. Those were dispatched to the 5,755 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with camera-ready publicity flourish at the academy’s Beverly Hills headquarters at 10 a.m. last Wednesday.
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