I love The King’s Speech.  LOVE IT.  The trailer got me emotional so I knew it had to be good.   It turned out it was so good I saw it twice that first day.  What makes this film so great you might ask?  Well I’ll tell you:

This is a human story.  It is a story about inadequacies, insecurities, and doubts.  It’s about fear and the conquest of it.  It is about bravery and the honor of doing what is right in the face of those fears and inadequacies.

King George VI was a stammerer.  Since a great man in my home ward also suffers from this condition, I can relate to his pain.  I’ve seen it and felt it - though obviously my feeling is at best a strong empathy.  He was called upon in the hour of the world’s greatest need to not only defeat his own fears, but to serve as a symbol of hope in the darkest times of a global war. 

I do not envy any leader of that era.

There is a scene where he walks toward the broadcast room to make his first wartime speech.  Moments before, he had been unable to successfully deliver his address.  As he made ‘the long walk’ I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the fear he must have felt.  Here he was to make a speech that would inspire his vast empire to stand up for what is right, to give them hope as they stood on the brink of war, and he was to do it all with a debilitating speech impediment.   

I couldn’t help but think of the great evil he was facing, of the millions of lives that were about to be lost, and the longest, darkest of nights the world was about to enter.  I can only imagine the burden he felt. 

But there with his trusted friend and mentor, he did it.  He looked square into the microphone and delivered the first of many speeches that were to become a symbol of national resistance.

I was reminded of the Atonement of the Savior.  He too must have felt an astonishing darkness as the evils of the world buried Him in despair.  But He also was comforted in His time of need and He too accomplished the task that was given Him.  And because of that, there is nothing in this world that cannot be made right.  Light will always triumph over darkness.

There is nothing you can’t do.  You are equal to your tasks.  I promise.  Please see this film.  I guarantee it will do you good.