SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

cinemajesty Producer Stephen Evans, helping to launch the career of Actor/Director Kenneth Branagh in 1989 with Henry V., also gives stage director Nicholas Hytner a shot towards the cinematic visualization of a play by Alan Bennett in the production of "The Madness of King George" (1994).Set in England of 1788, the character of King George III., performed by engaged Nigel Hawthorne (1929-2001) in a part of a life-time, mourns on the loss of the New World at dark and gritty designed sets of Windsor Castle by production designer Ken Adam, who also prepared Stanley Kubrick's sets for "Barry Lyndon" (1975) and the James Bond movies of the 1960s and 1970s. Director Nicholas Hytner had been well advised by Cinematographer Andrew Dunn to shoot the majority of the picture with a wide lens in order to capture the whole environment even in close-up shots, which gives "The Madness of King George" a constant glance at life conditions even with the Royal Family in 18th century.Actor Nigel Hawthorne, carrying the picture with two strong supports, on the one side actress Helen Mirren, who gives life to Queen Charlotte, with who she stays behind her possibilities in any given scene, preparing emotional space for the character of George III to own the picture; on the other side, the character of Willis, the doctor without a license, portrayed by Ian Holm with one evil eye on torture practices before bowing to the newly recovered King with his family by the end of "The Madness of King George", which had been a motion picture put in the vintage pool of 1994 with cinematic splendor from "Pulp Fiction" at the Cannes Film Festival, "Forrest Gump" and "The Lion King" side-by-side as Summer Smash-Hits for the masses, "Natural Born Killers", becoming the alternative choice to all the sweeteners and the hidden glow of "The Shawshank Redemption" about to explore in years to come.Director Nicholas Hytner just shared enough information with his leading man Nigel Hawthorne to give the actor the freedom of developing the nature-loving, bound in low life extravagance George, having his most convincing beats, when meeting a pig farmer on the country side to kiss a freshly born pig on the muzzle and further peaking in his performance with an heart-breaking speech in a room with prime minister and his staff explaining that the American continent is a paradise lost to the common man.The king's son also named George, portrayed by a slightly pale and faceless Rupert Everett, can not convince any society with his low-tempered appearances in public, so that the actor gives room to an ultimate punchline, "You wish me death, you little brat" where the character of George acts on fire and finally taking charge of his kingdom, after at times in-balanced and indecisively directions by Nicholas Hytner with regard to a sequence spanning six months of treading a disease of the nervous system called Porphyria with a carrying through actor Ian Holm as leading force and a luckily visual-rescuing soundtrack by George Fenton that conclusively Nigel Hawthorne got into position to give his interpretation of King George III a round-up, when the final curtain drops for the otherwise well-crafted motion picture called "The Madness of King George".© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

SimonJack I'm writing these comments about "The Madness of King George" because of the singular outstanding performance by Nigel Hawthorne. This is one of the most versatile roles in films in decades. It surely ranks among the very best of all time. As King George, Hawthorne covers a range of emotions, personalities and temperaments not often found in film roles. His character is a study in transition from the serious to the serene to the silly. It's a role of drama, of hilarity, of ego and stuffiness, of pathos, of sorrow and regret, and of gentleness and kindness. What an exceptional acting job.Most often I watch a movie for the whole experience, taking in the plot, characters, acting, scenes and scenery, location, action, intrigue, comedy, tragedy, as a blend of the whole product. All of these weigh in and affect how much I enjoy the film. But half way through this film, I became aware that I was more engrossed in the lead character himself, and the great diversity and excellence of acting on display. Others have commented that Hawthorne should have won the Best Actor Academy Award for his role in 1994. While I like Tom Hanks as an actor, I agree that his role in Forrest Gump wasn't anything exceptional. Certainly not on the order of "Mr. King" in "The Madness of King George." Indeed, Hawthorne must have had to work on his role -- even as a consummate actor, if not for the variations of mood and portrayals, at least for the vast amount of lines he had to speak in the film. By comparison, the Forrest Gump role had a very small amount of lines, and those were far less taxing to an actor. Hanks' was a role that seemed more fun and easygoing than a challenge or demand. I'm not one to complain about Hollywood (except for the low quality and volume of attempts at humor in the past 20 years), but once in a while I think that many others who make the same observation are right on. Hollywood flops big time in its Oscar choice of an actor, actress or film once in a while. It seems to me that the California-based Academy at times doesn't look as objectively and honestly at films produced outside the U.S. Nothing else produced in 1994 even came close to the outstanding acting by Hawthorne in this first rate film.

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.)