The King's Speech

            I-I-I-I-I r-r-r-e-eally enjoyed this movie. Now all stammering and poor (and perhaps tasteless) attempts of humor aside, there is a reason that this movie led this year's Academy Awards with 12 nominations. It's a great freaking movie from beginning to the end. It's funny how sometimes the best movies put out there are the ones that get by all of the big shots in Hollywood and were made on relatively small budgets and are independently produced. Just look at Slumdog Milionaire a couple of years ago and Black Swan this year as well. Both were produced by 20th Century Fox's offspring for independent films, Fox Searchlight, and The King's Speech went down a similar road of independent producing.
            But sometimes I believe the best things need to be those diamonds in the rough as it gives them that extra little appeal. The King's Speech centers around the true story of King George VI (played by Colin Firth) as he goes from being the Duke of York, and second in line to the throne, to being tossed into being King despite his reservations against it, at the outbreak of WWII. Oh and did I mention that during all of this he has a terrible stammer, which is really unfortunate to have when you're a part of the English monarchy and must constantly make public speeches.
            Now the movie spans over a good decade before WWII, as King George VI tries to deal with his speech problem. The King decides, with the pushing of his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), to see speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) about his problem. The film follows brilliantly the ups and downs over the years of Logue and the King's work together, thanks in part to the great script written by David Seidler, who used his own experiences of having a stammer and actual journals from Logue to make the film as real and historically accurate as possible.
             As with a lot of British films the cast was stellar even down to the bit players. Michael Gambon (Dumbledore in Harry Potter) did a great job as King George V and Guy Pearce (LA Confidential) did a stand up job as King Edward VIII who forced the throne on his brother after resigning. Colin Firth is absolutely excellent in his portrayal as I can't imagine how hard it must be to act as if you have a stammer, and he won the Oscar for Best Actor quite deservingly so. Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter each deserved the Oscar noms for supporting actors as well. David Seidler won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and it was deserved, but I don't believe director Tom Hooper should've won the Best Director Oscar, though he definitely deserved the nomination. That's a debate for another time however.
             All in all I'm glad this movie won the Best Picture Oscar as it had my vote for it, if I had one that counted anyway. But in the end if you enjoy good acting and a good story then you should enjoy this movie. I give it a thumbs up and 4 stars out of 4! Go see this movie if you haven't already!

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