Likely to clean up at the Oscars, The King's Speech probably has one it it for Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.
The King’s Speech, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush is a sentimental character portrait of reluctant monarch King George VI, his wife and his speech therapist.
As Hooper said of his own film “this isn't about the miracle cure” as there really isn't one. Rather, it's about the people who live and work with the king's stammer. Australian immigrant Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) presents a series of therapeutic techniques to help the royal not only with the mechanics of speech, but also with the emotional triggers and psychological issues. The queen regards Logue's work as most do: strangely antipodean. Bohamn Carter, in a great woman-behind-the-man kind of role, goes against the grain and persuades her husband to stick with it.
The emotionally charged, often hilarious events that unfold in Logue's office are driven by the relationship between Prince Edward (a villanous Guy Pierce), Wallace Simpson and his abdication. Both of which thrust his brother into the limelight and expose the terror with which 'Bertie' regards his stammer.
Edward is portrayed s selfish and cruel to his brother and that's all we really need to know for this film to work. Bertie on the other hand is a hero, who not only overcomes adversity but forms an unlikely friendship with a commoner. Though it's a little one dimensional, it plays out brilliantly.
Hooper creates portraits for a cast of characters who live and work with a speech impediment, with straight-on shots, hyperbolic point of view shots and extreme close-ups. Lionel Logue, undeterred by the stature of his client, has ultimate confidence in himself and his techniques. His lithe humour is superb and his relationships with his wife and children are not only telling but necessary for equality to exist among Hooper's characters. Insisting on calling the Duke of York Bertie like his family does, Lionel creates an even playing field between himself and the soon to be king. By giving Lionel and his family almost as much screen time as the royals, Hooper does the same thing.
Though he's tried to strike a balance with accurate history, Hooper will have encountered the censorships and a strictly limited flow of information from the royal family of the 1930s. He focuses on what could have have happened given techniques considered controversial at the time. This allows for a few fantastic scenes of Firth in explosive fits of swearing and injects the film with scenes of great humour matched with scenes of great pain. A festival favourite, and sure to clean up at the Oscars.
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