Curiously disjointed and jumpy for something that originated as a theater piece (by Alan Bennett), with little in the way of sustained dialogues and developed scenes. George III of England, but no longer of the American Colonies, is given a distinctive way of talking ("Yes! Yes!" "What? What?" "Hey! Hey!"), the sudden disappearance of which is one of the prime symptoms of his slippage into dementia. The state of lunacy is here mined for its easy entertainment value, always richer (or easier) when the resident is so distanced from us in time and in social station. Tweaking the noses, pulling down the breeches, of the lofty and the obsolete ("Good news! A fetid and a stinking stool!") is a popular enough pastime. Under the circumstances, it's something of a swimming-against-the-tide triumph that Nigel Hawthorne, veteran stage actor little known to Yankee audiences, is able now and again to make some heavy pathos out of His Majesty's humiliating reduction. Rupert Everett, in a lighter vein, as the King's unloving and unloved son, and stereotypical silly twit, toe-tappingly awaiting his own turn on the throne, steals every scene to which he gains admittance. Much of the talk, however, sounds anachronistically false ("If a few colonists in America can send him packing, why can't we?"), and the nick-of-time climax ("Hey! Hey!") plays false. And to bring up, and read from, Shakespeare's Lear as a point of comparison for monarchical fathers and their back-stabbing offspring does not, by association, raise the present drama to greater heights. It throws it into deeper shade. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. (1994) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.