The King's Speech

That sound you hear is two first-class actors working very hard to prevent Tom Hooper's The King's Speech from turning into yet another classy, year-end, heavily costumed historical drama. The King's Speech is the kind of film that makes you wonder if the top tier of British acting ever runs out of things to say to each other; after all, they're always bumping into one another on the sets of period dramas like this or the next Harry Potter film. As the 1930's pass and Hitler rises "Bertie" (Colin Firth) tries his best to avoid public life, leaving the public duties of royalty to his father George V (Michael Gambon) and brother David (Guy Pearce). Bertie's stammer makes public speaking a nightmare, and his misfortune is to be royalty during the dawn of live radio broadcasts. Colin Firth's performance is what keeps The King's Speech from being an HBO movie; his Bertie is spiky, angry, bound by duty, and frustrated at what he sees happening as his father dies and David aka Edward VIII ascends to the throne. The first scenes between Bertie and Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), the Australian speech therapist hired to cure Bertie's stammer, have a crackling energy. Logue won't meet with Bertie anywhere but in his consulting room or call him by the proper title, and Hooper (working from a script by David Seidler) could have lingered a little longer over the way Logue convinces Bertie of the validity of his methods. We have to get the historical background in though, so here's Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (Eve Best) partying and there's Winston Churchill (growling Timothy Spall) fretting about Germany.

A fellow blogger mentioned Good Will Hunting in reviewing The King's Speech; he's talking about the way that Logue goes outside the rubric of strict speech therapy to break down Bertie's emotional reserve. Being a royal son of whom nothing is expected but much is required is very, very emotionally taxing it seems, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see Bertie crying except for the fact that Firth suggests so much more capability than his brother. (Guy Pearce, who is 7 years younger than the actor playing his younger brother, is made up to look bloated and played out.) After Bertie ascends to the throne and becomes George VI there's a long buildup to a climactic radio speech in which the new King must inspire a nation on the doorstep of war. The scene between the King and Logue is underplayed well as a nervous Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) and nation wait outside. But here's where the very Britishness of the material works against it; George will give the speech because he must, and all the moments of introspection achieved in Logue's office can't help but feel inconsequential in the face of what's to come. The King's Speech is an enjoyable piece of storytelling given heft by Firth and Rush, but its detours into the psyche of a King don't add up to all that's promised.