Wonderful!!

Rating: 9/10 (7 January 2011)

I walked into the cinema thinking I would dislike this movie - it's about royalty and their silly issues. I ended up loving it.
The interaction between Geoffrey Rush (the speech therapist) and Colin Firth (the would-be King) is superb. We become aware of the vast differences between these two – in their upbringing and their station in life without it being a lecture on class differences. There is humour through-out with tremendous performances by the two above mentioned actors. We feel the struggle of both – Geoffrey Rush trying to persuade the would-be King to overcome his speech impediment and Colin Firth avoiding, but also pursuing his past to improve his speaking ability.
I did feel that the performance of Helena Bonham Carter as the wife of the would-be King was somewhat overly idealized. But Guy Pierce, as the abdicating Edward, along with his future American wife, were both excellent.
There are some misleading historical representations. For instance Churchill was on the side of Edward and tried to persuade him not to abdicate. But this is really minor and does not take away from the overall theme of the film.
It is to the credit of the film-makers that they took this long ago forgotten piece of history and made it into a riveting drama with a wonderful script.