A stunning disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (19 March 2011)

Academy Award for Best Picture? You have got to be kidding. Take an interesting but threadbare story, pad it up with stereotypical Hollywood moments and phony sentimentality, add lavish period shots - and we got a winnah, ladies and gentlemen. The new King of England has a speech problem and an unlikely bloke from Australia helps him. That's it. Not a lot of twists and turns in this one are there? And, by the way, the whole thing is based on a misconception: that stammering is caused by fear and childhood trauma. We know now it is inherited and physiological in nature, which entirely guts the impact of the content. This might have made a good HISTORY DETECTIVES segment, contrasting the historical event with the modern view. The problem is, no one knows much about what really went on. So, if you want to make a movie, you have to make up 90% of what you're filming, including the actual nature of the relationships between the characters. And they all "feel" made up, with the exception of the little girls - and, for my money, those two also did the best acting in the film. Geoffrey Rush does his usual overly-precious performance, playing hard to the camera and not really working from character. When are people going to wake up to his cloying schtick? What about all those knowing looks between the King and his therapist? Is there some sort of homosexual overtone being implied? If not, what? There's a certain uneven goofiness to the portrayal of their interaction that is superficial, unsatisfying, and very amateur. The only thing holding this turkey up is the superb craftsmanship of the cinematography and physical production values.