The King's Speech - Mediocre

Rating: 6/10 (24 June 2011)

Can I just say, before I get started, that I really, intensely hated this guy who did this 'mmm' 'ttssss' 'pppp' thing in the microphone? I don't know what it is exactly but something about watching it built up some kind of aggravation inside me that made me want to take out a baseball bat and smash my screen (or this guy's face, whichever would be near). It's a good thing this movie is about the king's speech and not about this guy's speech, or things would have gotten real ugly real fast.
So what about his speech? The king's? Let me first point out that this movie is about the exchanges between Rush and Firth. All the side characters do nothing for the plot and aren't interesting at all. I get the relationship between the king and his wife and they make nice and share some nice introductionary shots but their relationship has no arc in it. All the other side characters are filler as far as I'm concerned. So let's just forget about them entirely.
I feel like Colin Firth must have been struggling with his part. All in all I thought he was believable, but also very bland, closed and distant. I understand it's how his relationship with his speech trainer is supposed to start out but in my opinion he overdoes it and ultimately never got it right. Also, the shot with him standing at the bottom of the stairs... I felt like the director could have probably gotten a better take out of him.
The scenes between him and Rush generally lack intelligence, psychological depth, length and interesting dialogue. It plays out very predictably, including the last part where this guy comes in who tries to sabotage the entire thing, as well as the overly romanticized closing speech. Also including the beginning, where Firth pushes Rush away but then through an easily anticipated turn of events starts to 'bond' with Rush's character.
Most of the time I felt like I was watching two actors compete for the better part of the scene, rather than seeing a special friendship unfold. This movie desperately needed a scene that is dynamic and filled with emotion and has two actors playing off each other, like for instance the scene between Jullianne Moore and Colin Firth in "A Single Man". Sadly we get nothing of the sort and the movie just plays out predictably.
At this point, I can't really be bothered to say anything about the other aspects of the film because the bad writing destroyed the entire thing for me. It hasn't been that long since I saw this movie (about a month I reckon) but I just can't remember anything about the movie that stands out. So I'm going to leave it at that.