Lionel: “Why should I waste my time listening?”
King George VI: “Because I have a right to be heard. I have a voice!”
Lionel: [pause] “Yes, you do.
[long pause]
“You have such perseverance, Bertie … You’re the bravest man I know.”
Anytime you’re faced with the premise of watching a British period piece, words such as “interminable,” “insufferable,” “bad teeth,” “dear lord make it stop” and “longest movie ever” immediately leap to the forefront of your brain. And when that flick is also described as historically accurate, painstakingly recreated and brilliantly acted, those are interpreted as code words for “boring as shit.”
All of that being considered, imagine my surprise when I found that all of those descriptions could be loosely translated to “tremendous” when it comes to “The King’s Speech.”
Colin Firth did a stellar job handling the stutter, and he and Geoffrey Rush (Lionel Logue) had an incredible dynamic, finding a workable mesh between student-teacher contradicted with king-subject. Helena Bonham Carter was at her understated best as Queen Elizabeth, and even though one of the criticisms I had heard about “The King’s Speech” was that it ran too long, I felt the pacing was very good and it did not come across as excessively long at all.
Don’t get me wrong: All the variables were there for a snoozefest. In addition to the above, this film was littered with Aussies acting British and much of the plot revolved around a speech impediment. Revolving an entire movie around a stutter would seem to be a shaky premise for a movie at surface level, but as the plot progresses and context is provided, you see the extraordinary culled from that premise. Yet the sheer brilliance of Firth and Rush overcome all these obstacles to lift “The King’s Speech” to its rightful status as the movie of the year.
As the historical events high/lowlighted by Churchill and Hitler played out, and you were given glimpses of troubles in the royal family compounded with tragedy on the world stage, you couldn’t help but get a tremendous sense of the pressure that Bertie was placed under. It became difficult not to commiserate with and feel empathy for him, even when he acted like a giant-sized wanker. It became clear that Bertie’s lack of confidence stemmed from past slights, mistreatment in his early childhood, unfair criticism from his father and brother -- all of which contributed to his struggles with speech.
Amazingly, “The King’s Speech” was filmed in just 39 days, meaning that its 12 Oscar nominations and four wins represent a pretty good return on investment. And David Seidler, who wrote the screenplay (and won one of the Oscars), had a stammer as a child, bringing the project near and dear to his heart. When he was told that Queen Elizabeth II was “touched” by the depiction of her father in the film, Seidler told the Sun that it was the “highest honour” the film could receive.
On the negative side, not only did I find Guy Pearce to be miscast as King Edward VIII, but I also thought that he actually looked younger than Firth (King George VI), who was supposed to be the youngest son. But my biggest quibble—and it is a small one in the grand scheme of things -- was that I felt like the strength and depth of the friendship between Bertie and Lionel wasn’t explored or developed well enough. The two sort of went from an uneasy, awkward relationship to having a really strong bond by movie’s end.
However, any and all quibbles were overpowered and dwarfed by an incredibly emotional final scene -- even for someone with an admittedly loose grasp of the history behind the story, I was blown away. The triumph involved in Lionel helping Bertie to find his confidence, his identity -- and ultimately, yes, his voice -- befitted the triumph of a movie that was “The King’s Speech.”
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