Enjoyable movie but lacked a little punch

Rating: 7/10 (14 January 2011)

An enjoyable movie that follows the usual Weinstein indie Oscar route of someone known struggling to overcome character defect. In this case UK royalty in the person of King George V1, who suffered from a fear of public speaking because of a stammer. It concentrates very privately (too privately as a King wanders about London - what would Obama do without his motorcade?) on the Duke of York (future King George) and his unorthodox Aussie speech therapist Lionel Logue with the former Queen Mother and wife to the Duke of York providing the buttress in the middle. The acting is uniformly good from the three principals - Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, but the film lacks in two key elements. Firstly, Colin Firth is preposterously far too good looking and charismatic to be a convincing underdog who does not want to be King - witness his first meeting with the playboy Duke of Windsor, later Edward V111, where Firth outshines the shorter and younger-looking (sic) Guy Pearce. Secondly, the abdication crisis is rather ducked. I know we are all bored to death with Edward and Wallis, but a little more intimate depiction of what it meant to the Duke and Duchess of York at the time would certainly have helped to lift the film. And it is the acting which takes you with the movie, because the direction is workmanlike (TV mini series?) and the script has to portray the rather stiff and not always interesting mechanics of speech therapy. The difficult decision was whether to go deeply into the psychology of the future King and why he stammered - the film just about gets there in a comfortable sort of way and also nods at the impact of worldwide modern communications on public figures. Yes, it is enjoyable and comforting because of what the King had to face as Head of the nation and empire in its most difficult hour with some wry humour. The audience was full of pensioners with many who could remember the King - a lesson for filmmakers who pander to the dross of slackerdom and comics perhaps?