Most people are familiar with the story of Anna Leonowens. A widowed teacher of English descent stationed in India, Anna is summoned to Siam (now Thailand) to become the tutor to the son and heir apparent of the King of Siam. As an interesting parallel, the story is set during the Unites States Civil War and the Lincoln Presidential administration and the publishing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and its opposition to slavery. Siam is a closed nation with strict social caste rigidity and dependence on slavery under the iron hand of Monarchy. The King, though, knows that change must be integrated and wants his son educated in the ways of England and the West.

As a headstrong and clever woman accustomed to a certain professional decorum and the honoring of employment contracts, Anna quickly enters into a struggle for independence and recognition in a male dominated world, a need that becomes even more challenged in Siam’s royal palace where women have virtually no status outside of the family role. Anna defies all of the royal protocols for relating to the King. In fact, she is the only person, not to mention a woman, who dares to stand in the King’s presence and to stand up to him verbally through direct opposition and unsolicited opinions.

The conflict between a powerful man and a powerful woman has always been at the heart of great love stories, especially when the woman is the one challenging the man’s authority and superiority. In Anna’s case, significant cultural difference must be overcome as well, but she ultimately claims her place as the King’s equal. Anna, for all her power is really rather prim and has not filled the place in her heart or erotic life left empty by the recent death of her husband.

Outside of the class, gender, and cultural boundaries which constrict them, both Anna and the King seek perfection of their beings. In a frantically changing world, many limits can be imposed on self-actualization, but Anna refuses to take No for an answer whether she is attempting to free a slave, treating a prince like any other student, or speaking her mind in public and private. She knows the ideals of being a better human being, and she strives to achieve them. This is a quality that opens the King’s heart and soul to her because despite his God-like stature, fairness, and compassion, he is in many ways bound by the rigid customs. That is all he knows, and Anna opens the doors through which he can see a more complete way of being a man as well as the ruler.

Although Anna has much with which to challenge the King, he challenges her as well. In a touching and intimate confrontation, the King makes Anna face the most important question: "What does it mean to be truly a woman, and not just a widow, a mother, and a teacher?"

This indeed is the question women are still struggling to answer. More than anything, Anna and the King creates a wonderful arena where a woman and a man stand in their power with open hearts that sense, know, and love each other in their strength as well as in their weakness.

The romantic subtext between these two people is so strong and so wonderfully expressed by Foster and Yun-Fat that they rarely speak their feelings. And we are happy they don’t because the love between Anna and the King is expressed more deeply through their gestures, glances, and action than words could ever tell. In fact, the art of dance as a means of bonding between a man and woman who cannot or will not otherwise intertwine is wonderfully used in the film.

One of the harder lessons for those who live in a world of greater acceptance of sexual and romantic license of our modern ways is that we cannot always have what we want and at the same time have the integrity to fulfill our destinies. In reality, many of us are still best fulfilled in a monogamous coupling that gives us a meeting of spirits as well as bodies. Anna could never have the exclusive enjoyment of the King’s body (he had many wives and concubines and that was not going to change), and her desire was too strong to be with him incompletely. In one breathtaking moment, she refuses a lavish gift because of the strings that might be attached. In the end, she ultimately leaves the King. That decision is heroic and for it, Anna is more realized, the King is more open, and the heir apparent learns about grace and a new level of enlightenment that make him a better monarch. Sometimes, we must decline the favor of a much wanted and available lover for higher principles. This movie powerfully shows the full price and glory of such a decision in the context of real lives. This gives the lesson a richness and preciousness that can never be achieved by dogmatic "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots".

And of course, Anna and the King is not only a love story, but also a story of a family, a society, and the role of justice and government. It is also the story of the pain caused by change. The King’s kids, all 50 plus of them are a fetching, loving lot. The death of one is a terrible loss that almost breaks apart the bonds that hold them all together. Even the many wives and concubines have their part in unraveling this beautiful story. There are moments of pageantry and military exploit, but ultimately this is a story of the heart and soul, and a grand one at that.