Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Gordon-11 This film is about the chaos caused by King George's medical condition, which leads to transient but unpredictable psychosis.I must commend Nigel Hawthorne's acting. His portrayal of being manic and psychotic is very real and convincing. He makes his character as King George believable and brings him to life. The part where he delusions about London flooding is funny and sad at the same time. The plot build up is also good, with hints of porphyria being put in little by little. Doctors at that time did not know what it was, but fortunately we do now! It's a pity that the copy I viewed showed signs of aging. Colours seem to be fading and less sharp. I think I would have enjoyed the film more if it was not so.

Jackson Booth-Millard Based on the play, this is quite a good period drama of a new king of England that has an almost unexplainable madness. I did fall asleep somewhere, probably when Sir Ian Holm was helping cure the king, but what I did see of this film, based in the time of The French Revolution was good. Basically George III (BAFTA winning, and Oscar nominated Nigel Hawthorne) has recently been crowned, and not long after starts a dementia, and becomes more alive and more politically marginalized. All are concerned, especially wife Queen Charlotte (Oscar and BAFTA nominated Dame Helen Mirren), well, unless you count the stupid Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett). The only person who may be able to help the king return to normal "what-what" is Dr. Willis (BAFTA nominated Holm). Also starring Rupert Graves as Greville, Amanda Donohoe as Lady Pembroke, Green Wing's Julian Rhind-Tutt as Duke of York, Julian Wadham as Pitt, Jim Carter as Fox and Geoffrey Palmer as Warren. I can see why Blackadder picked on this period with Prince George in Blackadder the Third. It won the Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, and it was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and it won the BAFTAs for Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film and Best Makeup/Hair, and it was nominated for Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music for George Fenton, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound, David Lean Award for Direction for Nicholas Hytner and Best Film. Rupert Everett was number 39 on The 50 Greatest British Actors, Amanda Donohoe was number 38, and Dame Helen Mirren number 7 on The 50 Greatest British Actresses, and Mirren was number 5 on Britain's Finest Actresses. Very good!

Bob Pr. I saw this when it first came out, very much enjoyed it but my memory of it had grown foggy so, when it was shown tonight at my public library, I made a point of seeing it again. Good choice and I see why I remembered it as being so good.Hawthorne as the king, Mirren as the queen, Holmes as the doctor are all superb with Hawthorne the star shining brightest. The view of court life, loyalties, disloyalties, hidden agendas, was excellent.For those wishing more background of the era, I commend to you the viewer's comment of theowinthrop's (21 May 2005), "The King Who Talked to Trees..." which concisely summarizes the history of the era; this film is more loyal to the facts than most historical films. Most people seeing this will miss its delineation of the "Moral Treatment" movement in mental health. I'm a retired clinical psychologist and my internship was in the late '50s when psychotropic medicines were just coming in. The techniques of Dr. Willis were consistent with those of the "moral treatment" movement. These were later used at Topeka State Hospital, KS, (and a few others -- in the USA they originated at Pensylvannia Hospital with Dr. Benjamin Rush). This was "state of the art" during a few decades of the late 1800s but it began in Europe more than a century earlier. MT had many variants but generally demanded hard work, appropriate behavior, rewards and consequences, etc., and while its effectiveness was not equal to those of good treatment facilities in the 21st century, it was FAR better than other alternatives of that period -- and of many later periods through the 1940s. While many mental disorders (schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, etc., and the porphyria of King George) have a biological basis, the symptoms can be somewhat ameliorated, sometimes controlled by psychological forces. I found this account completely believable on a temporary basis. For a history of the MT techniques, please Google "Moral treatment" asylums; the Wikipedia article is quite good.This film is listed as a comedy. I view it as a drama with tragic and comedic overtones. I've worked enough years with psychotic patients in hospitals and in private practice that the loss of control of one's mind and its impact on one's family and associates never strikes me as comical. It's not that funny things don't happen -- as sometimes they did in this film -- but that's certainly not the overall arch. This film ends on an apparent upnote, at a point when the king was seemingly restored to his mind but before a later recurrence from which he did not recover.(As an example of briefly "funny" happenings in a tragic life, there was my episode with "Julian", a schizophrenic in his 20s who was in my therapy group. One day he didn't show up and I found he'd been placed in seclusion for groping an attractive (female) nurse. I visited him while he was in seclusion to continue our therapy relationship. When I questioned Julian why the groping had happened, he explained, "Aw, Doc, what's the use of being schizophrenic if you can't get some kicks out of it?" Somewhat funny, yes, right after the moment, but the overall arch of his brief life was closer to the tragic.)

david-2603 Watched this again yesterday & once more was enraged at the injustice of Nigel Hawthorne missing out on the Oscar to Tom Hank's Forrest Gump that year.An absolutely masterful performance from Hawthorne, matched by Ian Holm's doctor. The scene where the two of them meet for the first time is one of my favourites of all I have ever seen & always moves me.The film never takes itself too seriously, and the cast is a veritable who's who of great British actors that Hollywood largely ignored. If you haven't seen this film, then I'd urge you to do so. Not many of you will fail to be impressed.......