My favorite film of 2010 by a long shot!

Rating: 10/10 (25 December 2010)

Tom Hooper last blew viewers away with his critically praised HBO miniseries "John Adams", which starred Paul Giamati in the title role. Now, he returns to his native England to tell a bit of a different story.
Prince Albert, The Duke of York (Colin Firth) is in a bit of a rough spot. His father, King Goerge V is dying. With his father's deminishing health, all of the King's messages are delivered to the people of England via radio, and it's up to people like Albert to delever those messages to his people. The only problem is that Albert, or Bertie to his family, has suffered from a severe stutter since the age of 5. Despite the fact that he's seen every single speech therapist and specialist on the entire continent, his wife (Helana Bonnam Carter) stills feels that there's hope for her husband. So, against his wishes, she hires an eccentric Australian Speech Therapist named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). If Logue fails, then nothing can help Bertie.
Logue and Bertie don't exactly hit it off, and their freindship, as well as Bertie's life is filled with speed bumps including the death of his father, the fact that his brother, David, will be the new king, and the fact that David (Guy Pearce) is marrying a woman named Wallis Simpson, an American who has been married twice. After David finds himself unfit to rule, he avdocates the throne to his younger brother. Unfortionatly, soon after Bertie takes the throne, Adolf Hitler announces his plans to attack England. This shoves the country into WWII, and forces Bertie to conquer his fears.
Firth and Rush are at their best here, playing two very unique people who form an even odder bond. What makes this film all the more remarkable is the fact that both Albert, who later became King George VI, and Lionel Logue both existed in real life, as do many of the otehr characters, including Bertie's young daughter, Elizabeth. Fantastic cameos by actors like Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop, Cosmo Lange, and Timothy Spall as Winston Chirchill. But NOTHING can take away from the spellbinding performances by Colin Firth and Geffrey Rush