Sunday, September 26, 2010

Film Review: The King's Speech



Even given the fact that I got to see the film before most, it still disappoints me that
The King’s Speech is still far away from its release. As soon as I left the theater, I wanted to see the film again. It’s very rare that a film successfully brings together all the aspects of great cinema. It’s not properly a period piece or a historical drama as it is a lightly psychological journey and, inevitably, a bromance. The film chronicles the relationship between Bertie, or the Duke of York as he starts out, and his Australian speech counselor Lionel Logue.

It worried me going in that the majority of the audience was, to put it frankly, old. Whenever I go into a film with an audience of senior citizens, it’s hard to take some things seriously. That’s basically another way of saying that one’s sense of humor certainly deteriorates with age. However, I was still taken aback by exactly how funny this film was. The scenes between Bertie and Lionel are most commonly hilarious, even besting some of the odd-couple comedies that Paul Rudd has indulged in for the past several years.

I’ve got to hand it to Colin Firth, who turns in his greatest performance to date, and that’s not a title to be taken lightly. The film is hinged on his performance, and I knew going in that if he wasn’t able to make his impediment believable than the film would just collapse from there. Firth was able to not only play the character as almost physically crippled by his defect, but he was able to let the character come across emotionally through that. He’s not defined by his problems in his personal life or in his political life. He's defined by the people in his life and what they have done to and for him.

I found it extremely nice to see Helena Bonham Carter playing a role that doesn’t make me squirm in my seat, and to see Geoffrey Rush playing… something other than a pirate. Carter isn’t given as much as her male cast members, but she definitely makes her character shine, and all but locks her place in this year’s surprisingly week Supporting Actress race. Rush is a lot more charismatic that he’s been in the past. He’s clean-shaven, turn-on-a-dime hilarious, and altogether moving. His conflict with Bertie throughout the film defines it. It’s about their journey together, and though the relationship may not be mutually beneficial in a material manner, as Logue already has everything he needs, you can see that their lives are changed by each other.

The supporting cast does a brilliant job as well. Michael Gambon is perfect in what is practically the only scene that he has as King George V. Guy Pierce started out somewhat weak at first, but eventually became quite vicious in one particular scene with Bertie. It’s the one time in the film in which the elder audience members didn’t start laughing at things that weren’t supposed to be funny. Timothy Spall is in a small tangent of the film as Winston Churchhill, and gives a peculiar but eventually nice performance.

Credit goes out to director Tom Hooper for not emphasizing the period aspect of the piece. He keeps things intensely personal with the story at hand. He doesn’t get too deep into political propaganda. He offers a nicely understated context for the story. The cinematography is textured in very much the same way as the smeared colors on the walls in Logue’s home, and that’s a compliment. Alexandre Desplat does his usually expert job scoring the film, hitting all the right notes emotionally.
The King’s Speech is surprisingly accessible for today’s audiences, and finds the perfect balance of tragedy, joy, humor, and drama. I look forward to seeing it immediately after its release, a treat that I rarely take nowadays.

A+

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