My Fair Monarch

Rating: 7/10 (17 February 2011)

It's so hard when you're seeing a movie after it's been hyped as much as "The King's Speech" has and been nominated for 12 Academy Awards to boot not to have expectations of greatness....and be somewhat disappointed when greatness fails to materialize.
That said, "The King's Speech" is a perfectly well-made and mostly entertaining film about King George VI and his efforts to overcome a stutter that threatened to hurt his image as ruler of his kingdom. The speech of the title is the one George delivered to the British people declaring war on Germany at the outbreak of WWII. The delivery of that speech is the film's best moment; the rest of the movie is tasteful and intelligent, but not overly inspired.
I could have done without the "Ordinary People" therapy moments between George and his speech therapist (played in the film's best performance by Geoffrey Rush), in which we learn that George's problem results from a troubled childhood and the pressures placed upon him by dear old poppa. Those scenes are redundant anyway, because one scene between George and his dad (played with brief gusto by Michael Gambon) tells us all we need to know. However, I did like what the movie had to say about the emergence of radio and how it redefined public relations. After radio came along, it was no longer enough for leaders to simply be seen by their public; they had to be heard too, and they better be sure when they were heard that they sounded like leaders. At the time I saw this, I was reading David Halberstam's "The Fifties," which talks at length about the very same kind of transition between radio and television in the late 1940s, so I found that part of the film especially of interest.
Colin Firth is quite good as George, and Helena Bonham Carter doesn't get much to do (but does what she does get to do well enough) as the Queen Mum.
Grade: B+