12/30/10 - The King's Speech

The King's Speech (2010, 118 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504320/

The King's Speech was another big awards movie with many people saying that Colin Firth is a shoo-in for pretty much any Best Actor award that's going to be handed out these coming months. Besides that, though, I'd heard that the overall movie was really high quality so I went in with high expectations. Then again, that didn't turn out for the best with my last watch of True Grit.

The movie follows King George VI (Colin Firth) as he studies to get rid of his stutter that makes it so difficult for him to give speeches. Encouraging him is Queen Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) but Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) is who becomes his speech therapist. There's some small family drama involving George's father King George V (Michael Gambon) and George's older brother King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce).

There's not much really in the plot of The King's Speech. It's quite obvious how most everything is going to play out from the beginning. This turns The King's Speech into a movie that's more about the journey. For these reasons I'm reminded of Black Swan from earlier this month. I label this pacing for that movie and this one to be "Stairway to Heaven pacing" because it builds and builds the whole time. It's quite clear that the titular speech will be the climax of the movie and that everything will build to it. It's also hard to imagine that it'll be poorly delivered or really pathetic in any such way. So, the movie has to be carried by the characters and the other details that make up the previous 110 or so minutes.

Thankfully, The King's Speech doesn't disappoint in this regard. The movie takes its time at first as it sorts everything out. There's a lot of characters at the beginning as we also have all this stuff going on with King George V and his impending death and King Edward VIII not being there and King George VI stuttering and them trying to find a speech therapist to work. It's easy to see that the movie is doing a lot of juggling here at the beginning. This is when the movie is at it's worst. However, once it gets its footing everything soon clicks and clicks well. Basically, once Lionel is introduced the movie starts running and from then on everything is amazing.

The first long scene with Lionel and King George VI is fantastic. It's somewhat the stereotypical story of "atypical methods work better than the by the book approach" with Lionel relying on different stuff than the previously shown doctors were doing. His quick wit and constant humor also sets him apart from the other doctors. Anyway, this first scene has amazing acting from Firth and Rush and it's at this point that it's obvious that both of these actors are on the top of their games as they plan on going 100% in delivering memorable performances. The banter between the characters has to be perfect for this relationship to work and both actors play off of each other so well. It's clearly the highlight of the movie.

Firth's performance lived up to all my expectations and more. The thing that I found unbelievable was how he was seemingly able to deliver his lines with such a complicated stutter with such ease. It's impossible to not want to pull the words out of his mouth and help him with his stutter. It's really believable and the pain and anguish that he shows as he struggles is palpable. He really does deserve all the praise (and probably even more) that he's getting for this role.

Equally impressive though is Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue. Sometimes the humor is a little much but he constantly has this smirk on his face the whole time anyway so it still comes off as natural for his character. I have read that Rush and Christian Bale (for The Fighter) are the main competition for the Best Supporting Actor award and with this performance I find it hard to believe Bale could be any better. Anyway, Rush also excels because he, too, comes off as entirely believable as the speech therapist that's helping the King. He's flawed a bit himself and his methods are definitely weird but everything ends up working for the best. This plot point is a bit cliché really but the way Rush and Firth handle it make it entirely convincing and completely sell me on it.

There was one small camera thing that I wanted to comment on as well. It seemed to me that frequently the camera was just a tad bit lower than seemed natural. This left many frames where the tops of the character's heads were cut off. It didn't really ruin anything or change anything drastically, but it did just overall come off as a bit odd. Most movies just frame everything higher than they did here but I can't for any reason come up with why this was chosen. Perhaps I just noticed it a few times and it doesn't have any significance.

Overall, I gave this film an 8/10. The King's Speech is a movie where the acting performances carry the day. Everyone is completely stellar and for this it makes the movie one of the best I've seen so far. As of now, I think The Social Network is edging out The King's Speech but it's pretty close which is really saying something. Maybe The King's Speech won't have the legs and be remembered like The Social Network will in five years, but it's still a phenomenal movie.