"Timing isn't my strong suit"

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2011)

'The King's Speech (2010)' has been getting a lot of attention this awards season, and not undeservedly; it's a fine drama. This true story is anchored around two characters characters, one a British monarch (Colin Firth), and the other a little-known Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) with unconventional methods. The chemistry between the two leads is terrific, with Lionel Logue amusingly bouncing his eccentricities off an often-flustered King George VI. (The audience in my theatre responded very well to the lighthearted cultural jabs at Australia's expense).
I've usually considered Helena Bonham-Carter to play very cartoonish characters, obviously due to her collaborations with husband Tim Burton, but here she manages to be rather understated and even graceful. Guy Pearce is good in anything (and yet he never appears for long enough), and here he's excellent as King Edward VIII, a haughty womaniser whose proposed marriage to American socialite Wallis Simpsons caused a constitutional crisis.
For all its merits, however, 'The King's Speech' feels like too little butter spread over too much bread. The series of therapy sessions between Albert (later George VI) and Lionel are certainly entertaining, and monarch's war-time speech, guided by Lionel as though he were conducting an orchestra, was stirring enough, but I didn't quite feel the momentousness that director Tom Hooper was trying to suggest. One exception takes place in Westminster Abbey when Lionel, lounging casually on the coronation throne, asks his patient, "Why should I waste my time listening to you?", to which Albert replies, clearly and firmly: "Because I have a voice."