CINEMA: The King’s Speech

With a clutch of Award nominations already to its name it looks as if The King’s Speech is going to be the most successful British film of the year. But is all the hype surrounding this low budget movie, stuffed to the brim with British and Aussie acting talent, really that good?

Actually, it really is with superlative performances from its three leads and some knock out support from the rest of the cast. Director Tom Hooper never intrudes with fancy camera angles or special effects, letting the script by David Seidler glitter and flow freely — which is extraordinary as its subject matter is a man so terrified of uttering words he is, at times, rendered speechless.

A terrible stutter is an awful affliction for anyone, but when you are the second in line to the throne, as Bertie Windsor was (later to be King George V1), and expected to make stirring speeches to one’s subjects it becomes an almost insurmountable hurdle. But Bertie (a pitch perfect performance by Colin Firth) was determined to face his demon and overcome it with the unswerving support of his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) who could not bear to see her husband suffer the humiliation of ‘drying up’ in public.

It is Elizabeth who locates Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) and convinces Bertie this may be the man who can help him, even though his methods — lots of swearing, ‘singing’ words, face contorting vocal exercises — are unusual to say the least. But slowly, Bertie does get better and when his wayward older brother (Guy Pearce) abdicates, meaning Bertie must ascend to the throne, he needs all the coaching Lionel can give in order to broadcast live to the nation.

This is a classic triumph over adversity story, but it is much more than ‘I came, I stammered, I conquered’. The bond of love between Bertie and Elizabeth is just as important as the bond of friendship that grows between Bertie and Lionel, and the politics and dynamics within the Royal family as well as in Downing Street (Anthony Andrews is outstanding as Stanley Baldwin) add lots of colourful background tension to flesh out the story. Firth is as good here as he has ever been and his stammer never becomes a grotesque laughing point, more an excruciating hurdle to communication. Back in 1987 he starred in A Month In The Country in which he played a shell-shocked World War 1 veteran with a stammer and he has honed his speech impediment technique to a point where it has become like a nervous tic, something intrinsically part of who he is. So, the King’s Speech is nothing fancy or flashy, but its ability to make its audience empathise with its main characters means it is utterly compelling.