The King’s Speech (2010)

Directed by: Tom Hooper | 120 minutes | drama, history | Actors: Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon, Geoffrey Rush, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Ehle, Derek Jacobi, Anthony Andrews, Eve Best, Dominic Applewhite, Max Callum, Filippo Delaunay, Tim Downie, Freya Wilson, Mark Barrows , Harry Sims, Sean Talo, Anna Reeve Cook

Tom Hooper is having a good time. The director, who is only 38 years old, has already rocked a number of his previous productions in Emmys and Golden Globes, winning big with his vision of the first fifty years of the United States (“John Adams”) and a partial history of the British royal family. (“Elizabeth I”). Both HBO series won the aforementioned awards for both best miniseries and best male and female lead – in addition to a range of other film and television awards. The British filmmaker is following his own good example, and once again delves into the historical entanglements of the local Crown. And again, he doesn’t do it half-heartedly. Should Helen Mirren already appear as Elizabeth I (a role she later perfected to Oscar wins in ‘The Queen’) and it was up to Paul Giamatti to portray John Adams, this time it’s Colin Firth’s turn to take the throne. Accompanied by an array of interesting supporting cast – Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce and an endearing Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill, to name a few. The main supporting role, however, is for Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue, the self-proclaimed speech-language pathologist appointed to help would-be King George VI of his stuttering and resulting fear of public speaking, gradually forming a close friendship with the soon-to-be monarch.

‘The King’s Speech’ relies on almost all fronts on both that friendship and the interpretations of the two gentlemen. And that is in no way a negative point, or a reflection on the equally successful supporting roles. The two acclaimed actors command the screen in an impressive way, with their chemistry almost tangible – as if you were watching a play from the ringside. The typical British humor in the script by Londoner David Seidler, who himself stuttered in his youth and for that reason looked up to George VI, finds a grateful outlet in the occasionally hilarious, but always subdued (because British) interaction between the king and his wife. speech therapist. The Australian Lionel consistently calls the king Bertie and does not accept differences of class in his practice, but at the same time does not dare to tell his wife that Albert Frederick Arthur George, His Royal Highness The Duke of York, is one of his patients – and knows his place in relation to his eventual king. Although that is not because Bertie’s character demands that – he is simply not used to it differently in his dealings with people from outside the royal house. The humor is then mainly in the subtle interaction between the two completely different people, who together find the middle ground and form an exceptional friendship. When Lionel asks the question ‘you do have control over your own mouth, don’t you?’ during a speech exercise. states, the response is played surprised: ‘it’s obvious you’ve never met a member of the royal family.’ And to Bertie’s answer to the question of what he feels during a training exercise of his diaphragm (‘just hot air’, a comment that cannot be done justice with Dutch subtitles), Lionel responds snaakly with ‘isn’t that what public speaking is all about?’ Even when that interaction becomes a bit more frantic, and Bertie switches to singing and foul language during the lessons because the stuttering with such utterances disappears, the two character actors manage to remain credible and respectable in an eloquent English way – while it is easily bland and silly. could have been.

Because of the special bond that Bertie and Lionel build, you would almost forget that the speech training of the latter serves an important purpose. A king of the then immense British Empire at the time of the rise of radio appearances, who cannot address his people coherently, has a problem. Especially given that the land George VI inherits from his father – via a short-lived kingship from his older brother Edward (Guy Pearce), who had other plans – is on the brink of World War II, and asks for a leader. The leader Bertie can be, when he sees in himself what his environment, and especially his wife and father (a warm Bonham Carter and a regal Gambon), have long seen. And the viewer somewhere, too – George ‘Bertie’ VI is a much stronger character than a superficial disability such as a speech impediment suggests, and Colin Firth brings that straight out of a shabby audience performance in the opening scene. When the metamorphosis of the somewhere so shy George VI is finally complete, that development is also supported by the two Rush and Firth. Of course, the growth of Firth’s character effectively leads to the memorable – and, thanks to Alexandre Desplat’s score, touching – closing speech the king delivers to his countrymen on the day England declared war on the Germans, but it is the actors behind the two now good friends who are to blame for that wonderful ending. Rush, because his Lionel is the driving force behind the progress of the king’s speech – not coincidentally, the reason Hooper gives him the last frame as the king greets his people on the steps of Buckingham Palace. However, the man on that platform is the heart of the film, and Colin Firth’s interpretation is just right. He mainly turns an interesting historical portrait into an impressive character sketch. It is therefore fitting that he should be allowed to give a famous and moving speech in the closing scene – if he takes home his Oscar for Best Actor, he will not have the time for a speech of that size and weight.