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The King's Speech
An Academy Award-winning masterpiece
I finally got the chance to see The King's Speech not long before it won the Oscar for Best Picture at last night's Academy Awards. It also won Best Directing for Tom Hooper, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), and Best Actor for Colin Firth, all of which it deserved because it is a fantastic film. It is now one of my favorite movies from 2010, losing only to Inception in the twisted battlefield of my mind. I was absolutely blown away by just how affecting it really is.
It chronicles the speech impediment of King George VI (Colin Firth) and his struggle to overcome it. His wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), seeks out a speech therapist named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) who has a unique way of assisting his patients. He agrees to help the king, who is not a king at all when the movie begins, with his problem. The two men strike up a friendship which really does provide the backbone for the entire film.
That's probably because the two are portrayed by a couple of the greatest actors in the world today. I went on YouTube and watched a couple of videos of the actual King George VI talking and it is uncanny how much Colin Firth sounds like him. The big speech at the end of the movie is especially impressive. Geoffrey Rush just does what he does best: he has fun with his character while also providing a tremendous performance. It would not be the same movie without him. Helena Bonham Carter doesn't have much screen time but she makes her scenes count.
The biggest draw to The King's Speech will be its cast but aside from that I found it to be a very poignant film. I was touched by several scenes and a lot of them had nothing to do with vocal hindrances or anything of the sort. I have a bad habit of calling out films on their historical inaccuracies and I'm figuring that The King's Speech got a lot of things wrong but it is still a spot-on period piece. The plot of the film takes place from 1925 - 1939 and the setpieces feel very authentic, mainly due to the beautiful cinematography work of Danny Cohen (he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work). The score by Alexandre Desplat (also nominated for an Academy Award) is candy to the ears. If I can find the soundtrack for the movie anywhere, I will be obtaining it.
There's not much else that can be said about the movie. It is just another case of a pretty good script (good enough to win an Oscar anyway) that was elevated to another level by the work of an outstanding cast. In fact, I just can't see a cast getting any better than the one in The King's Speech. I still say that Inception should have won Best Picture and that Christopher Nolan still does not get the attention and respect he deserves, but for now I can rest easy knowing that Jesse Eisenberg did not win Best Actor and that a damn fine movie did win Best Picture.
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