Both movies are funny, seriously. Both have incredible male leads (Colin Firth and Jim Carrey) who couldn’t actually pull off so well — without an Oscar-winning performance — the role of the other). Both have cute male supporting leads — Guy Pearce and Ewan McGregor, although Ewan is about 20 times sweeter and 1,000 times more loving. Both take place in the past and involve some amount of driving or being driven. Both have quietly happy endings, and both are based on true stories.
Yet I Love You, Phillip Morris is based on someone trying to overcome an imaginary problem of a private citizen (“Being gay is expensive,” concludes the main character, and so the stealing, swindling and embezzling commerce) while The King’s Speech focuses on actually overcoming an actual problem with great public ramifications: a king’s propensity for stuttering while uplifting and continuous voice is most needed.
Despite the moral high ground of The King’s Speech, I found myself pulling for both the King and Steven Russell, and like most good movies I see, I spent a lot of time while falling asleep, after each, imagining what could happen in the actual story after the movie ended. Without giving too much away, let’s just say I see Steven Russell in Mexico, reunited with his great love, although probably still wheeling and dealing with great genius. I see King George IV, besides having actually died in 1952, finding enough joy and freedom to perhaps dance a little wildly in private while singing curses to “Camptown Races.”
In either case, comparing these films is like comparing mango martinis and buttery scones. Both are good and even necessary at some point in a person’s life, and both are worth savoring.
