The King's Speech Review

"I BLOODY WELL STAMMER!" - Prince Albert

Speech impediments are extremely frustrating. For a long time I couldn't pronounce my "g"s and still have a little trouble with "s"s. The King's Speech focuses on England's Royal family and the ancension of a son to his father's place as voice and face of a nation, during a time when we were on the brink of our second World War. All of this is happening, yet this film, which walked away with the major awards at the 2010 Academy Awards, focuses not on Albert's reign and how he finds an enemy in Adolf Hitler, but on his crippling and embarrassing stammer that threatened his family's image, and perhaps even the country's image. The film works through precise directing, intelligent writing, a superb cast, and a lead performance that brings it forth into greatness.

The film is set in a time when speech impediments were seen as physically curable. Perhaps some were, but the physicians of this time failed to see the problem stemmed from something deep rooted into a person's psyche. Such is the case of Albert, the man who would come to be called King George VI. When the frankly retarded methods of Royal doctors prove ineffective, Albert's wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), goes around her husband's back to find one who is effective. She finds Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian family man, Shakespearian actor, and full time speech therapist. Lionel is the more therapuetic one, who tries to find and overcome that deep root. His relationship with Albert is at first rocky, as Albert is very sensitive to criticism and humiliation. Lionel, however, encourages the prince to keep at it as they slowly make progress. At the same time, it seems with an ailing father (Michael Gambon) and irresponsible brother (Guy Pearce), the throne will soon be going to Albert. Having already failed numerous times when speaking publically, Albert and Lionel must work together and persevere if he is to bring any hope to his nation.

The movie is pretty clearly genius. It is masterfully directed, extraordinarily acted, with great dialogue and characters, as well as production designs that are very cool. Watching the 2010 Oscars, I was a little skeptical of Tom Hooper receiving the award for Best Directing (it was out of guys like Danny Boyle and David Fincher, and for some reason not Christopher Nolan). After watching the movie, however, I don't think they made the wrong choice. When he is not displaying the amazing set pieces and locations, his direction of the actors, especially Firth and Rush, is remarkable. My favorite moments involved the unique camera angles he shot to symbolize Albert's struggles. It's kind of weird but there is a training montage scene in this that was, even though it was about speech therapy, on par with those montages you see in sports movies like Rocky. David Siedler's writing creates a compelling story with even more compelling characters. It is very nuanced and perceptive, which I suppose it would have to be with a psychological story like this. Music, editing, and cinematography are also worked to perfection.

Now for the cast, and The King's Speech has a great cast. I seem to be very drawn toward British ensembles (watch Gosford Park). I will start right off saying that if anyone has ever earned a Best Actor Oscar it is Colin Firth. I was, again, a little skeptical about all of the awards the film received before seeing it, but after seeing it I knew they were well deserved. Firth manages to do something fascinating here. He performs a role involving a horrible speech impediment, and convinces us 100% that he actually has it. It isn't just public speaking either, it's all the time. There are moments when he's stammering and you just are wincing because it seems so humiliating and sad. We have all mumbled, we have all gotten tongue tied, we've screwed up our speech in some way before, but what Prince Albert had was literally something off in his subconscious. Being a great actor, Firth doesn't let his mastered stammer carry the film or his role, because Albert is more complex than that. He feels shame, bitterness, embarrassment, all leading to wounded pride. All he really wants is to be better, is to overcome his issues not so much for family and country (though both are crucial to him), but really to help himself. Colin Firth conveys all of this, so bravo. But where we had a perfectly convincing portrayal of a man whose speech was broken, we needed a perfectly convincing portrayal of a man who specializes in fixing speech. Geoffrey Rush reestablishes himself as a powerful actor, because, let's face it, most of us younger viewers first knew him as Captain Barbossa. Rush gives a superlative yet very entertaining performance as Lionel. He is great at showing someone who is very passionate about one thing (Shakespearian acting) despite being infinitely more talented at something else (speech therapy). Rush portrays Lionel as everything he needs to be and more: Intelligent, understanding, even loving but regretful and unaccomplished. Helena Bonham Carter was, well, Helena Bonham Carter. I'm kidding, but she does do what she does well and that's not really a bad thing. She portrays Princess and later Queen Elizabeth as a clever, articulate, and compassionate woman of action who loves her man and tries to help and support him to the best of her ability, even when he wishes she'd leave him be. In playing this, Carter is very good. Besides, I don't think I've ever disliked her in a movie, so she already has a plus. Starring as Prince Albert's father and brother, Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce perform very well as very douchy guys (surprise, surprise). When he's not a gay head wizard, Gambon often plays cold men. In his few scenes here, we get an idea of what Albert's life of Royalty has been like. Pearce doesn't play the brother as stupid but just afraid. He falls back on being the dick older brother when frustrated at his own situation. Other cast members such as Jennifer Ehle as Donal Logue's wife, Derek Jacobi as Cosmo Gordon Lang (The Archbishop of Canterbury), and Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill. I must say, out of all of the performances, Spall as Churchill may have been the one I enjoyed the most. So yes, as you can imagine, they brought it in the acting department.

Overall, The King's Speech is very much an Oscar Film. By that I mean that it was pretty clear that this was the kind of movie that would immediately make those leading Academy members and movie loving celebrities all hot around the award season. Having great reviews also helps. But an Oscar Film is such because it is spectacular. The King's Speech is such a movie. It's a unique and very thoughtful idea brought to the big screen, or small screens now, I guess. I enjoyed every second of it and knew walking out why it had gained such praise. It earned what it got, that cannot be denied.

Five out of five Royal Weddings. This has been a long awaited (I'm sure (:) review from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.