the late birthday movie

For the last number of years we, en famille, have gone to a movie to celebrate Amelia's birthday. This year we're several weeks behind, but finally we went yesterday to see The King's Speech (no, I won't link to the official site because the previews are so extensive these days that they give away the entire film. So there. Consider this my little protest.)

I was going to tell you all about how great it is, & how much we enjoyed it & how it's not at all your typical historical costume drama (not at all), but I've now got distracted over its American rating.

R?

R??!!!


Oh fer crying out loud. So it's ok to blow off people's heads, to have violence and gore and jump scenes to terrify kids and those films get PG or maybe PG 13. But say "fuck, fuck, fuck, shit and tits" and it becomes R for language? (Oh dear, I hope I didn't wreck it for you by letting you know that people swear in it. They do.)

Sensibly & reasonably, in BC it's rated PG.

It is a slow moving film, not a lot of action and might not keep the interest of young ones who've been reared on ADD tv. On the other hand, it's about an interesting time in history. Plus any child who has learning challenges etc would definitely benefit from seeing it. My bottom line is: show it to your older (10+?) kids. They need to see that people in absolutely privileged circumstances can still have lives that suck big time (including a truly evil nanny story), and that people of all ages often have to struggle to achieve things. Add brilliant acting, nice pacing, Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter & a fab supporting cast, and it all makes a wonderful package.