England is on the brink of going to war with Nazi Germany, Edward VIII abdicates and suddenly a prince with a severe speech impediment and fear of public speaking finds himself on the throne: this fascinating historical situation is portrayed in The King’s Speech with wit, pace and subtlety. You do not have to be an avid historian or an enthusiastic supporter of the monarchy to be captivated and charmed by this understated but never dull film which centres on the spiky relationship between King George VI (Colin Firth) and his unorthodox Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).
Based on the book by Logue’s son, this film has a great sense of authenticity, unlike most recent historical films which have tried too hard to make real stories Hollywood-friendly and, in the process, have become unconvincing and formulaic. Last year Made in Dagenham, an inspirational-film-by-numbers, had an unsupportive husband turn up just in time to see his wife make a rousing speech whilst The Social Network desperately tried to make what was essentially a series of business negotiations visually interesting by placing them in a night club or a hotel room where the bedclothes were on fire. In a moment of pure cinematic Eureka, Mark Zuckerberg sprints across the Campus of Harvard because he has had the brainwave of putting the relationship status on the facebook profile: implausible scenes like these cannot help but make you wonder if these films bear even the slightest resemblance to the true stories upon which they are based. Fortunately, this is not the case in The King’s Speech – the film almost always avoids the predictable and the stereotypical and presents the story as interesting and idiosyncratic.
Engagingly written, attractively shot and impeccably acted, this January release is bound to waltz with dignity and charm into the awards season. The royal family, a speech impediment, a cigar-puffing Winston Churchill – chances are these will go down well with the Academy. Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter and Guy Pearce all put in great performances but it is Colin Firth who will be most lauded for his compelling and sensitive portrayal of the monarch. Critics are suggesting that he has finally shed the wet shirt of his old romantic roles as a reserved English heart-throb. However, he had already made a fairly clean break from this typecasting in A Single Man (2009), where he played an ageing homosexual lecturer, leading a melancholic life in 1960s LA, unable to cope with the death of his lover. In the 2010 awards season this role garnered him a BAFTA for Best Leading Actor and an Oscar nomination. With The King’s Speech, Firth looks set for another triumph.
