Is ‘The King’s Speech’ really all that deserving?

The 2011 Orange British Academy Film Awards took place last night, sparking the buzz that will burn through to the Oscars later this month. A couple of hours of mildly entertaining red-carpet action kept me hyped up for the ceremony, something that, unlike the Anual Academy Awards, I was not particularly looking forward too.

The BAFTAs, (whilst the most prestigious and celebrity-ridden cinematic award ceremony for us Brits), are usually overly predictable and frankly, tend to prove themselves hideously biased towards one particular film.

This year was no different.

We’ve all experienced the furore over ‘The King’s Speech’ starring Colin Firth (now dubbed ‘King Colin’ by his peers); it’s been hard to get away from the commotion surrounding it, and so it was no surprise that the film took home seven awards. Sure it’s a good film, it’s got stellar performances from some of the best British Actors around, but did it really deserve all those awards? Personally, I think not.

I can accept Best Actor going to Colin Firth – just; I can accept Best Supporting Actress going to Helena Bonham-Carter, I can even go as far to accepting it win Best Film but I cannot even fathom how it won Original Music, Best Supporting Actor, or the other three it stole. Yes – Alexandre Desplat created a wonderful score for ‘The King’s Speech’ but I couldn’t believe that Chris Nolan didn’t run home with that award firmly in his grasp. A masterful soundtrack was created for ‘Inception’ and I haven’t spoken to one person who hasn’t mentioned the music when describing their experience seeing it. However, ‘Inception’ did take home 2 awards – one actually was for Sound so I guess I can’t complain too much.

What I will complain about though, is the lack of recognition ‘127 Hours’ and ‘Black Swan’ seemed to experience. I fear a sense of “patriotism” crept, or rather threw itself, into the minds of the voting panel, and it was made evidently clear. Surely the Best Original Screenplay should have gone to the mind-bending and exhilarating ‘Black Swan’? And how ‘True Grit’ won the award for Cinematography I’ll never understand; the best cinematography I’ve seen in years made itself very apparent in ‘127 Hours’.

I would ramble on about how much I am frustrated at the BAFTAs this year, but it’d be boring and almost as predictable as the ceremony, so I won’t. However, what I shall say is that when looking towards the Oscars, pray that they will maybe be a little more generous and open-minded at all the talents portrayed in film this past year. One film may stand out from the rest but with nominees such as ‘Inception’, ‘The Town’,‘Black Swan’, ‘127 Hours’, ‘True Grit’, ‘The Fighter’, ‘The King’s Speech’, and ‘Biutiful’, can you really, honestly, hand-on-your heart say that one defeats the rest in all aspects?

I certainly can’t.