The King’s Speech is a visually stunning film that plays like magically moving vintage photographs. It depicts a time when cigarettes were good for you, Australians were considered exotic, and security allows citizens to drive to Westminster Abbey during a coronation, claim association, and enter. An experience of flawless, unreal cinematography, it’s not without a pithy sense of humor; at times, the camera’s angles alone will make you laugh.
The film dominated this year’s Oscar-predicting Toronto Film Festival, so with great expectations I attended a recent invitational showing at City Cinemas on Third Avenue. Colin Firth was in attendance, but I didn’t spot him through the seat-seeking throng in the vintage theater. Firth portrays the Duke of York as he becomes King George VI in this based-on-historic-events story.
The King’s Speech [impediment] is a crippling stutter—“stammer,” rather—complete with clicking and, at times, awful gagging noises. You know that terrible feeling of experiencing embarrassment for someone else? Firth’s merciless rendition will make you endure it. Looking into Bertie’s (as his family calls him) watery, anxious eyes causes you to feel invasive, as does hearing him suffer through his next royal address. In fact, the voice of Bertie is a character on its own. Its timbre is somehow Kennedy-esque with the royal accent instead of Boston’s; at times it’s forceful and others nasal.
The film’s lighter moments shine through the London fog, mostly during scenes between the future King and his eccentric speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). At first royally scandalized by Lionel’s insistence upon calling him Bertie while imposing personal questions, the unlikely pair forms a beautiful, Depression-era bromance.
At the early dawn of the electronic age, the two marvel at the technology of recording a voice and playing it back… on the same machine. Bertie discovers he can, somewhat unbelievably, speak fluidly when wearing headphones blaring music. (Are we meant to believe that when stutterers can’t hear their own voice, they don’t stutter? That should make things far easier in the age of iPods and constant headphone input). Soon after that dramatic breakthrough, in a display of great trust, the stuffy monarch is rolling on the floor, shaking his jowls, and singing jingles—some of Lionel’s various speech therapy exercises—in a most unstately manner.
Bertie lives in times when the successor to the throne could walk through London parks unnoticed; his face isn’t plastered on every tabloid like today’s Harry and William. It’s also the period of Hitler’s rise to power, and his elder brother, David, succeeds to the throne after their father’s death. Bertie would be happy to dodge the throne, but the Prime Minister and most of the public is horrified by the new King Edward VIII’s devotion to American socialite Wallis Simpson, his twice-married mistress. As political tension builds both in Europe and at 10 Downing, Bertie senses his impending accession to the throne. Radio is newish and the concept of the disembodied voice of your leader is cutting-edge, so he’ll regularly be expected to speak in a most kingly manner. Naturally, he panics.
Bertie can prevail because his only friend isn’t Lionel; in fact, the show’s stealer is his wife Elizabeth, played by Helena Bonham Carter. The actress radiates through a makeup artist’s mission to age her—puzzling, since in real life she’s already older than her character would have been. A commanding presence suffused with poise, love, and good manners, she displays quiet, unwavering loyalty and support. Also, ridiculous hats and really cute shoes. From their first descent down the rickety lift to Lionel’s office, this husband and wife team is the picture of a mature and happy marriage. (However, why anyone would cram herself into that claustrophobic, rickety elevator to descend one floor is beyond me. Surely there’s a staircase).
Despite being a Depression and wartime film set in dreary weather, The King’s Speech is somehow an escalating, feel-good show. The audience clapped and cheered as Lionel conquers his demons in a time of national need. Though I personally prefer deep downers for the Academy’s consideration, and fought frustration at having to sit through another of the King’s halting orations, The King’s Speech is a film well worth attending very soon in spite of its limited release status.
The King’s Speech opens to limited theaters on November 25, 2011.
