Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
1/15/11
When people tell you that
history bores them, odds are they haven't been exposed to it much since
the days when we were all victims of whatever imbecile decided the way
to teach it in school was to drill students in a timeline of names, places
and dates. Ironically, the only thing that really does make history
sing is the fact that it pulses with human stories, people who were just
as real as you and I making real choices and facing real problems both
epic and intimate. Case in point: Prince Albert, the Duke of
York who, between the mid-20's and late 30's faced two major issues.
One was a chain of events that would thrust him into an unexpected position
of King of England on the eve of World War II. The other, a speech
impediment that made him terrified to speak in public. The King's
Speech tells both stories with a heavy emphasis on the humanity of
all involved and is the latest in a tremendous string of late-2010 prestige
releases to sport a cast full of remarkable performances. Chief among
them is Colin Firth, a longtime reliable character actor who's now hitting
his leading man stride on the other side of 50. Geoffrey Rush and
Helena Bonham Carter, who long ago earned the right to play to the back
row and use it quite often, are at their most subtle, and Guy Pearce and
Michael Gambon their most casually odious. The King's Speech
is a treat both for history buffs and fans of simple human drama:
it's the kind of good for you on the outside, delightfully entertaining
on the inside film upon which its producers, Bob and Harvey Weinstein,
made their fortune.
In 1925, Prince Albert (Colin
Firth) makes a speech to close the British Empire Exhibition which is broadcast
on the fledgling BBC radio network. It is a disaster: his stammer
makes the speech endless and causes listeners throughout the country to
pity, rather than respect, the Duke of York. Assorted quacks in the
British Empire's employ encourage him to smoke more or speak with a mouthful
of marbles, all of which only makes the problem, and his humiliation, worse.
His wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) seeks out unconventional speech
therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who works out of a small office
and refuses to alter his proven techniques for even a member of the Royal
Family. At first, Albert is reluctant, but his regimen of vocal and
physical exercises does produce some improvement, and he continues to see
the therapist for a decade during which his father, King George V (Michael
Gambon) dies, passing the throne to Edward VIII (Guy Pearce). Edward,
Albert's older brother, cares nothing about governing, only about his dalliance
with the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson (Eve Best), who he marries over
the objections of the Church. Forced to abdicate the throne, Edward
passes the baton of leadership to his stammering younger brother, who as
King George VI must find the courage and the clarity to rally his people
for a looming struggle with the Nazis.
Firth has been the reliable
English gentleman in seemingly dozens of movie love triangles over the
last 20 years or so (having survived the unspeakable The Accidental
Husband with his dignity intact alone should have been worth some sort
of award) before receiving an Oscar nomination last year for A Single
Man, which I didn't see. If his performance there was anything
like the one he gives in Speech, I really should have, because this
is amazing work. Albert/George is all about the stiff upper lip on
the outside while he visibly crumbles on the inside, with the actor not
only thriving on long stretches where director Tom Hooper simply fills
the screen with his quivering face, but also affecting the most convincing
stammer I've ever heard. This is a man who's endured horrible childhood
traumas (being punished for being left handed until he wrote with his right,
stomach problems brought on by his cruel nanny neglecting to feed him)
years before we accepted the concept of post-traumatic stress, but he stands
as tall as he can, making him all the more courageous because he only wants
to run and hide in Edward's shadow. And there are no showy soliloquies
or destructive tirades in the role, just the steady excellence that lets
you in to the character's mental process every moment he's on-screen.
It's a great, great performance.
Rush and Bonham Carter make
keeping up look effortless precisely by not seeming to try hard at all:
they disappear into the easy humanity of their roles. Logue is a
wonderful character, a working class hero who loves his family and delights
in his acting hobby even when neither seems to love him back nearly as
much, and helped to pioneer a new field of medicine without a degree out
of a desire to help the broken WWI veterans he saw back home in Australia.
The way Rush stands his ground when speaking to the Royals who show up
at his tiny office, all the while showing that he understands just how
unwise that might be, is a joy to watch, as is the slowly building friendship
between the monarch and his therapist. Bonham Carter, for her part,
is the picture of love and support without ever seeming like less than
her own woman. Far less supportive are Pierce, at his most delightfully
worthless in what must be the least sympathetic take on the Edward/Wallis
romance ever committed to film, and Gambon, who totally nails the counter-productive
“Just get over it!” attitude that prevailed toward speech problems at the
time(and in some cases still persists today). Derek Jacobi also makes
a splendidly backstabbing Archbishop of Canterbury.
Hooper gets maximum effort
out of his cast and then mostly stands back and lets them, David Seidler's
wonderfully observed (and mostly historically accurate) screenplay, Alexandre
Desplat's splendidly subtle score and Netty Chapman's first-rate Art Direction
(the contrast between the world of the monarchy and the working class has
never seemed more realistically lived-in) do their work. I was really
taken with how successfully the film transported me back to the 20's and
30's as opposed to contemporary cast and crew playing at the past, and
that's largely because of how successfully it replicates the joys as well
as the sorrows of another time.
The King's Speech
is the kind of movie that was once popular but has recently struggled to
find a mass audience. I hope that won't be the case because it's
funny, moving and quite illuminating about both British history (it makes
a great companion piece to The Queen, over
which George VI's memory hangs without a lot of explanation for those unfamiliar
with him) and speech therapy, not a frequent movie subject. And fans
of its talented cast should be delighted to watch the best awards season
in recent memory keep right on rolling with remarkable performances.
And despite the R rating (strictly for profanity), it certainly beats everything
I learned in school about pre-WWII Britain as a teaching tool. History's
cool. Really. |
