Surprisingly pleased

Rating: 8/10 (12 October 2012)

The kings' speech is a linear progressive story of King George VI (Colin Firth) of England, who has unexpectedly come to the throne because after his fathers' death (Michael Gambon), his brother King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce) first takes the throne but because of his wild life style and the fact the woman he was in love with was a divorcée was put on the spot either abdicate from the throne or leave Mrs Simpson. Edward has been the only king to ever do this in Britain. With this pressure on him Edward does leave the throne and puts George on the spot. George has a speech impediment which hinders his ability to address the nation, which is need because he needs to reassure his people before the days leading up to World War II. His wife Elizabeth (Helen Bonham Carter), who is the Queen Mum, tries every speech therapist they know of except one; enter Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) who is an Australian with an unorthodox approach to therapy. Logue's unprofessionalism breaks down barriers and they become friends, Logue does help George overcome his speech problem. And King George VI leads his nation through to victory. This piece is more a drama than historical or biographical because the facts have been exaggerated so the story moves faster and is more dramatic. This makes for good story telling but isn't accurate so I wouldn't be able to consider it biographical or historical primarily. George is pressed into the throne and pressured to speak to the nation knowing about his speaking difficulties which just adds more bulk onto his back and this doesn't help one bit. His father was not understanding of his difficulties and forced him to speak publicly and this pressure made the stammer worse. I believe the methods of Logue were informal and helped build a bond between them, not having to call him your royal highness and being in charge of the king instead of it being the other way round. George's first lesson showed that he need not to think about what he was saying and not worry about the stammer and the words will come out. We know this because Logue made George listen to music whilst reading from the bible. Every shot we see King George in the background is always golden and royal. The wall paper and decorations are predominantly gold in colour this shows majesty and wealth, compare that with the office in which Logue works from where his wall paper is a spatter of colours shows a contrast in personalities and social status. I think the splatter represents an impulsive, do what you want to do kind of style to Logue's personality where we know the king is bound by his role to fulfil public addresses, and attend ceremonies etc. I think compared to other genres that include drama, historical and biographical themes this movie is racier and it has excitement, unlike most movies with these three as their main genre. The king's speech also has an uplifting ending. It centres mainly not on characters and not what was happening to the country at the time. There is also something extraordinary about the kings speech writer David Seidler, he developed a stammer too just before his third birthday whilst fleeing England during WWII. He wrote the king's speech but needed permission from Queen Elisabeth, whose husband was King George VI, before finishing it and upon her death in 2002 continued writing it. He added dialogue from books he had received from Logue's family that entailed conversations during therapy of Logue and the King. Director Hooper has already worked on a television series about Queen Elisabeth I so it wasn't unfamiliar to him. I am not surprised the movie won a lot of awards because the Weinstein Production Company picks up movies it believes will win Oscars. After only costing $15 million to make and raking in a whopping $373,700,000 I would say this movie has done brilliantly, but with a star studded cast and one of Americas biggest production companies behind it and the fact the US loves anything to do with British royalty it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. I was surprised by how much I liked this movie because it totally isn't my style but I did enjoy it. The focus on actual character development and relationship is what wins it over for me and the twist is good too. It's more a fiery drama piece for me. The tag line: 'It takes leadership to confront a nations fear. It takes friendship to conquer your own' is a great way to describe this delight I am going to give The kings speech 8 popcorn out of 10 because it's not my favourite type of film but was enjoyable and I would watch it again.