The King's Speech

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2011)

THE KING'S SPEECH – 9.4/10
Director: Tom Hooper
Writer: David Seidler
Most intelligent scripts are not written out of pure imagination. There must certainly be a mix of brute reality and concocted fantasy. The King's Speech is one of those films that balance the nuances of fictional storytelling with realism exceptionally well, to an extent where it provoked me to research the inspirations of the writer who came up with such brilliance in simplicity.
The film is a classic case of intelligent script writing. We frequently come across films where we are not sure what happened in the end. By this I don't mean films that have complicated plots, but instead films in which viewers are lost and rendered hopeless. If we being to explore the myriad elements the scriptwriter has used to produce this marvel, it might well serve as a little old school text book lesson. While I do believe that the purpose of art is to redefine definitions and break rules, this one almost seems to stick to archaic definitions but much to ones delight.
The film has a strong protagonist, the roscius Colin Firth (King George IV), with an even stronger antagonist, well. Mr.stammer. Every character that does anything in the film is impacting, affecting, and related to in some manner or the other to the protagonist and antagonist. Even the King's brother's character has so tidily been knit into the entire scheme of speech impairment, no matter how little on screen time he received. The writer never forgets his central plot and focus, and keeps every character, their individual stories coming back to the central theme of the film – The King's speech impairment.
He takes the film to a meaningful conclusion but first builds towards it systematically, craftily placing each stone, each brick in the right position to ensure the edifice of the film is flawless. What matters even more is the climax is not bigger than it should have been nor was it subdued or understated for sake of humility or otherwise. The achievement of the film was to make the viewer feel the joy of both, the King who just overcame his toughest hurdle, and the shrink who knew what he had achieved. Like the insignificant audience to the King's speech, we too are awed, enamored and pleased by what we are hearing. With a very weak premise – A King's Speech impairment to begin with, it is a mammoth task to build a film with so much dimension, several characters each carefully delineated, absolutely no lose ends or irrelevant sub-plots, a thick central plot and yet there was time to sprinkle ample humor. A point worthy of mention was the humor in the film. It does not rely on age old situational tactics or awkward everydayness inflated to extract laughs from a fatigued audience. The film has exceptional eloquence as though it was a book and not a film, and the humor is well integrated, flowing as smoothly as the prose with the rest of the film.
The acting is top notch, and each individual more than outperforms the other. The characters are real and believable and are consistent throughout the film, never once showing signs of their true selves. It was acting that carried the film further than what it would have gone had the acting gone wrong or was not appropriate in the given circumstances. When you have several conversations between a shrink and his patient, it is the acting and the script that will keep you absorbed, and nothing less, if nothing more.
Camera techniques were interesting to watch. You had the use of wide angle in closed rooms, contrary to its purpose. The magnificent halls of the royalty palaces and grand architecture of yester year London have been captured and used to great effect. The rule of thirds, though I am not sure what purpose it served in context of the film, added a sense of dimension to the scene and character. Close crops were introduced strictly when needed. Use of empty space is to perfection; I wonder if it was added to increase the sense of restriction an individual with speech impairment feels, as it certainly played on my subconscious mind and was only noticed when I made an effort to.
David Seidler who suffered from the same problem himself has done justice to his cause by writing such a witty, emotional and simple yet a grand film. With whatever cues the makers could take from reality, the film certainly manages to deliver at all levels. All in all, The King's Speech is a perfect family drama, with several layers within it, and is an all weather, mood and season film.