The King's Speech

The King's Speech won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2010, and after finally having seen it, I will say that it was a worthy winner. I think that I like Inception as the year's best, but that being said, The King's Speech was very good. The performances are top notch, the cinematography has a distinct style, and the essence of the era is captured wonderfully. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, from start to finish.
Colin Firth plays unassuming King George VI, who has a great heart but is crippled by a speech impediment. Bertie (as he is known to his friends), tries to fix his problem by going to speech therapists, but none have been working. His wife (Helena Bonham Carter, NOT in a Tim Burton movie!) enlists the help of Lionel Logue (an exemplary performance by Geoffrey Rush) as a desperate measure to help the future King. After being thrust into the throne, it becomes more pressing that Bertie be able to speak well, or lose the trust of a nation on the brink of world war.

Rush and Firth shine in their scenes together. You wouldn't expect this film to be a buddy movie, but it sure plays that way. It's an interesting dynamic to watch Rush, the common man, treat royalty just like he would anyone else in order to treat him. Royalty are seen as these larger than life beings, and Firth does a fantastic job of playing one who tries to keep that persona, yet can't help but develop a great friendship with Rush's character. Lionel slowly wears Bertie down and builds him back up into a man that can lead. Lionel knows that underneath Bertie there is greatness, yet it just cannot be expressed properly.

The advent of radio and television has made public speaking such an important job for politicians and leaders. Our culture values those who are personable, easy to talk to, and can be related to, even if they are not much substance. It's a shame that introverts might be overlooked because they simply do not interact well. This is exactly what Bertie is faced with. He is a great man with honor, loves his family well, and wants to represent his country well, yet he is seen as a joke because he stammers. His determination to be a capable public speaker is inspiring, making the King's journey one to be invested in.

I was shocked to find out that this movie was rated R. The MPAA is so random with the rating system. Austin Powers in Goldmember, a PG-13 movie, is about a million times more offensive than The King's Speech. There are two scenes where Bertie swears quite a few times in a short time span, and that is the only remotely offensive conduct in the film. Only because a handful of the swears are the "f-word" does it garner the R rating. Somewhere along the line someone made up the standard that if a PG-13 film could get away with one "f-word", and any more than that would bump it up to an R, no matter how the rest of the movie is. If choosing to let someone under the age of 17 (the supposed age you must be to watch this film) watch The King's Speech or Goldmember, I would choose The King's Speech a hundred times out of a hundred. The rating system honestly is a joke.

The English royal family has always been a mystery to me. It's purpose in today's world eludes me. Yet The King's Speech is a film that portrays the importance of the Royal family to the country, and what an honor it is to represent the United Kingdom in that manner. The film does this by humanizing King George, and I genuinely cared about he and Lionel's friendship. The fact that this film is based off of true events is just icing on the cake to what will be remembered as a classic.

4/5 


(Side note: I'm glad that the filmmakers decided to treat a speech impediment as something that needs to be treated with more than just a harsh word and a couple of slaps in the face, the good ol' John Wayne way)