Historical Events Intimately Told with Regal Humility Thanks to Firth's Career-Defining Performance

Rating: 8/10 (27 February 2011)

Tonight is the ceremony of the 83rd Academy Awards, which signals the official end of the 2010 movie year, and it has taken me a while to find an opportunity to see the Best Picture and Best Actor frontrunner, director Tom Hooper's (HBO's "John Adams") intimate chamber-piece historical drama about how King George VI overcame a debilitating stutter and went on to lead the British empire through World War II. Written by Tom Seidler (his last big-screen credits were a couple of animated films in the late 90's), it is exactly the type of movie that the Academy praises with their accolades, and in this case, it appears justified for a number of elements, chief of which is Colin Firth's masterful portrayal of the painfully shy former monarch thrown into the spotlight by his older brother who could not give up the twice-divorced woman he loved.
George VI was known as Bertie to his intimates, and despite his royal lineage, he had no intention of assuming the throne. However, he had to speak in public periodically as part of his duties and stammered hopelessly as is illustrated in the film's opening scene when as Prince Albert, the Duke of York, he chokes and stutters uncontrollably at the close of the 1925 British Empire Exhibition in front of thousands at Wembley Stadium. It's one of several traumatizing experiences for Bertie, but his fair-minded wife Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother, recognizes that her husband needs to overcome the situation to serve the empire. She enlists the help of Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist (and failed actor) based in London, whose unorthodox methods include encouraging his clients to sing, spit out profanities, and share intimate childhood secrets that may unlock the cause of their speech impediments.
More familiar historical events take over in the film. When his father, George V, dies in 1936, his brother David ascends the throne as King Edward VIII, but for years, he has been smitten with Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée socialite, whom he wants to marry despite the fact that she would never be accepted as the Queen. This constitutional crisis causes Edward VIII to abdicate and thus force Bertie to take the throne. This chain of events causes rifts among the main male characters that are healed by the onset of a world war. Throughout this period, Bertie and Lionel privately work together in painstaking fashion to overcome the new king's stammering. The climax is the 1939 radio speech that George VI needs to deliver to his subjects upon declaration of war against Germany to motivate them to keep their spirits high during the empire's darkest hour.
It's not that Firth does anything all that different here as Bertie from his previous work like last year's "A Single Man", but his dexterous performance resonates in the way he can be forbiddingly regal and tenderly vulnerable nearly in the same moment. Geoffrey Rush has a field day playing Logue as he gets to represent the audience point of view with his character's acerbic observations and modestly respectable family life. After showy turns in her partner Tim Burton's films ("Sweeney Todd", "Alice in Wonderland"), Helena Bonham Carter is comparatively demure as Elizabeth, but her innately steely resolve shines through in a flattering portrayal of the woman who would become the most beloved royal in her later years. The trio of actors makes for a particularly effective dynamic among real-life characters and highly personal situations.
Smaller roles are filled expertly if sometimes a bit broadly - Guy Pearce playing David as a superficial, nasally fop not above ridiculing his brother's stammering; Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop of Canterbury highly suspicious of Logue's intentions; Michael Gambon appropriately distant as the dying king; and Timothy Spall who does a somewhat ham-fisted turn in what appears to be a caricature of Winston Churchill. Claire Bloom was virtually unrecognizable in a near-bit role as Queen Mary. Careful craftsmanship abound in this production from Danny Cohen's subtle cinematography to Eve Stewart's stately production design to Alexandre Desplat's stately soundtrack, which includes a most effective use of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony during the final scene.