MANILA, Philippines -- Four English rulers – King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI and the future Queen Elizabeth II – grace “The King’s Speech,” turning it surely into today’s most British monarchy-focused opus. This year’s “Best Picture” Oscar winner comes just weeks after the much publicized wedding of Prince William and Princess Catherine. It further spotlights the intricacies of royal life, providing moviegoers with a front-row panorama of the life and times of Albert Frederick Arthur George (a stunning Colin Firth) is the stuttering man who would be king.

Mere mortals like us will find it curious that Bertie, as his family called him, or B-b-b-bertie as his older brother David (the future Edward VIII) sometimes taunted him, might have been born with a silver spoon, but he was a stutterer.

Asked by George V (played with aristocratic authority by Michael Gambon) to read a speech on radio – the medium of the day – Bertie flubs the task, another disturbingly public failure. It’s not that British monarchy, historians will tell you, did not hide any skeletons in its closet. In fact, another King George – the third – suffered from insanity, becoming the subject of the film “The Madness of King George.” But first things first…

It’s the age of the Great Depression on both sides of the Atlantic, and Elizabeth (a quietly steely performance by Helena Bonham-Carter) decides that enough is enough. She will now no longer rely on court physicians to heal her husband’s speech impediment. Pretending to be a commoner, but without losing her royal demeanor, she asks speech therapist Lionel Logue (the ever engaging Geoffrey Rush) to take Albert as a patient. Logue agrees, but on two conditions. He and Albert must have a relationship of equals, calling each other by their first names; and Logue’s office will serve as their classroom.

Albert’s natural imperiousness meets its match in Logue’s libertarian school-marmishness. The prince cannot be denied his psychological-crutch stash of cigarettes; the teacher insists on no-smoking sessions. The prince will not partake of the tea the professor brews slowly and serves in china obviously not of the Royal Doulton ilk. Most of all, the prince cannot stand the therapist’s insistence on equality. They repeatedly part ways, only to be brought together repeatedly by the loving Elizabeth.

Gradually, the mountain moves and/or Mohammed goes to the mountain… and the odd couple starts to gel.

In one unorthodox lesson, Logue asks Bertie to read Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” lines while wearing headphones to which deafening classical music is piped in. He records the delivery. Not amused, Bertie walks out. But when he later on plays the recording in his royal chamber, the unexpected clarity of his speech surprises both royal highnesses. They return to Logue’s unkempt premises, and the lessons resume with greater gusto.

The lessons’ high point, which earned the film an R rating, has Albert musically mouthing a string of expletives that include those for private body parts and the more intimate forms of social intercourse. It recalled that scene in “My Fair Lady” when Eliza Doolitle finally declares in perfectly pronounced and enunciated English that “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”

Glorious moments like these counterpoint the film’s graver scenes, such as George V’s death, twice-divorced Wallis Simpson’s (Eve Best) boozy parties, Edward VIII’s accession and tumultuous abdication, and Hitler’s rise. It’s a tapestry of British and Empire history such as the world has never seen before and probably won’t see again.

Tom Hooper stays true to David Seidler’s award-winning, all too human script, reducing gentler cinephiles to tears but never falling into mawkish sentimentality or sensationalism. Tariq Anwar edited Danny Cohen’s magnificent cinematography to the soaring music of Alexandre Desplat. Other crew members include production designer Eve Stewart and costume designer Jenny Beavan.

“The King’s Speech” runs for 118 minutes; its R rating severely limits release to the (enlightened) Makati Glorietta 4 and Greenbelt 3 cinemas, driving one to wonder why the MTRCB did not rate the movie like the “Harry Potter” films, “Batman Begins,” “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and other works with equally graphic and possibly disturbing content. SM cinemas, which ban R-rated films, could and would have shown it then to a national, much wider audience.

Cristobal Labog has worked as a copywriter, creative director and strategic planner for advertising agencies in Manila, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Brussels and Amsterdam. He divides his time between Trabzon, Turkey, on the Black Sea and Mandaluyong in Metro Manila. E-mail crislabog@gmail.com for questions and comments.