THE KING'S SPEECH (2010)
Directed by Tom Hooper
Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffery Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Jacobi, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon
About time I reviewed a recent movie, eh?
Prince Albert, Duke of York (Firth) has a rather nasty stuttering problem, which is a real bother, considering part of being a member of the Royal Family is giving speeches. He's tried all sorts of doctors to help him overcome it with no success. Desperate, his wife Elizabeth (Carter) seeks the help of Lionel Logue (Rush), an Australian speech therapist living in London. Logue runs a tight ship, and he will have none of Albert's royal backsass, even going so far as to refer to him by his not-so-royal nickname "Bertie". Everything is going well and Albert is making great progress until a series of unexpected events leads to his older brother King Edward VII to abdicate the throne. Price Albert is now King George VI. And more than that, England is about to go to war with Germany. And King George must deliver the most important speech of his life to a nervous and unsure nation.
This is kind of movie Oscar loves. It's well-made, superbly acted and historically significant. No wonder it won this year's Best Picture award. Colin Firth is amazing, Geoffery Rush is funny and Helena Bonham Carter is so good that I didn't even know it was her playing the Queen Mum. That's the cool thing about her - if I don't know she's in a movie when I go in, I never know it's her until the end credits.
Of course, the question on everyone's mind: did this movie deserve to win Best Picture? There's always some kind of controversy when this award is given out every year, and many were saying that The King's Speech, while an amazing film to be sure, wasn't as good as, say, Inception or Black Swan. Well, part of the problem with expanding the Best Picture field from five films to ten is that there's no way I can see them all. Of the ten nominees, I've seen The King's Speech, Inception, True Grit and Toy Story 3 (How to Train Your Dragon should have gotten the nod, but that's for another time). And if I were to make my pick out of these four, I'd have to say, yes, The King's Speech was the best of the lot. Inception was cool, but dragged a bit and got confusing. True Grit was also amazing, but remakes have a hard time at the Oscars. Toy Story 3 was amazingly emotional, but come on, an animated film will never win Best Picture (no matter how cool it would be).
Another controversy about The Kings Speech was the R-rating it received (and the UK equivalent, the "15"), due to a scene where Lionel makes the discovery that Bertie doesn't stutter when he swears. This leads to Bertie letting off with a string of profanities, all of them stutter-free. Also, later in the film, he rehearses his speech with few f-bombs thrown in to break up the silence. I have to say, I understand why the film got the rating it did, but it might have been a bit unfair. The scene is one of the funniest in the film, and the words are used as expletives rather than verbs (which, if you will remember from This Film Is Not Yet Rated, means you can still squeak by with a PG-13). The Weinstein Company is planning to re-release a PG-13 version of the film with that scene cut short. But if someone comically swearing doesn't offend you, check out the R-rated version. There's no sex, not once square inch of skin and no violence, so something you would usually hear on the bus anyway isn't that big of a deal.
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