"The King's Speech" is a great movie ... and more

Just got around to watching "The King's Speech" yesterday. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to. It is an important story that is very well told. We tend to mock royalty these days. Most of the reason for that is, here is the lower 48, the concept of royalty seems odd to us.

But it doesn't to the Brits. The men and women who have taken on those roles may, indeed, have all the money a person will never need at his/her disposal. But they also carry a burden - namely, that every action they take is subject to a country's scrutiny. That means if you have any sort of handicap (and I think we can agree being a stutterer is a handicap), you will be subject to considerable ridicule.

The movie has great acting ... and is worth seeing just for that fact alone. But it also is a triumph of will, guile and plain old-fashioned guts. At some point in our lives, we all have had to reach out for help. More times than not, that helps come from an unlikely source. (In this case, a commoner who wasn't even a doctor.)

My favorite moment of the movie comes at the end. It is when the King is done with his important speech. On his way out to greet his subjects, he stops to simply say, "Thank you" to the man who stood by his side during what was likely the biggest personal crisis in the King's life. It would have been easy to forget to do so. But great men get that way by not forgetting the little things.