A Charming Film

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2011)

By a strange irony the film I'd watched at the cinema the previous night was 127 HOURS by Britain's most innovative director Danny Boyle whilst this evening's offering was THE KING'S SPEECH which had made in Britain plastered all over it . Boyle's film fails to a large extent because it's rather anti-cinematic where as Tom Hooper's film should fail down to the rather passé seen it all before feel that tries a little too hard tro appeal to prize ceremonies . If I was disappointed by Boyle's latest offering I was pleasantly surprised by THE KINGS SPEECH
The movie suffer somewhat from the hype surrounding it but that's not to take away from the fact that it's one of the most charming films I've seen in a long time . Watching a movie at a cinema has both pros and cons . It's an expensive night out and there's the danger of being surrounded by philistines and peasants of the most bourgeoisie kind but one good thing is to guage public opinion as to the merits of a movie and listening to the crowd react to the pithy dialogue with delayed laughter reminded me how an audience reacts to the best works of Wood Allen or Mike Leigh . This is very much comedy of manners developed to its best potential
Colin Firth is an actor I first took notice of in TUMBLEDOWN . He's best at playing manly roles but until now he's been best known for playing Mr Darcy in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE but is never less than superb as Prince Albert/King George and this is a career defining performance which will almost certainly earn him an Oscar .. Geoffry Rush as Lionel Logue as a maverick speech therapist who has a slightly dark secret is equally superb and will earn an Oscar nod at least . With this type of movie a film largely succeeds or fails due to the supporting cast since the two are in danger of dominating the film to the detriment of everyone else but Bonham Carter , Jacobi , Pearce and Gambon make an impact with their small roles as does as unrecognisable Anthony Andrews
Realising that the main story of the Prince's stammer isn't enough to carry a 2 hour film the screenplay by David Seidler has a couple of subplots involving King Edward's abdication and the ascent of Hitler in Germany and director Hooper develops the subplots very well . If there's a problem with the film it does have " Award winning movie " written all over it but as I said it's so charming you quickly forget that . If it sweeps the award ceremonies it'll probably be down to the merit and even this republican film goer was swept up in the story . In fact it made me proud to be British