We managed to take a break from preparing for Snow-pocalypse 2010 last night to catch The King's Speech. It's tradition for the Schumanns to brave the cold and the crowds to catch a movie on Christmas night. My pleas for Burlesque were ignored and we ended up at Masterpiece Theater.
Tis the season for self-serious historical biopics, and that's just what this one is. Deliberately paced (read: slow), handsomely photographed, and screaming it's importance at the top of it's lungs, one senses that the real climax the filmmakers are aiming for will occur on Oscar night. That might be a tad harsh, as the film does this brand of film as well as any other ... I'm just a bit sick of the stuffy British dramas.
The history behind the King's Speech is actually pretty fascinating -- the reluctant Duke of York (Colin Firth) is forced to take the thrown when his brother (Guy Pearce) steps down to marry a commoner (Wallis Simpson, the subject of Madonna's future Razzie-winning directorial debut). That's all fine, but it's the age of radio, there are Nazis all over the place, and the new king has a killer stutter. Enter an unconventional elocution expert (Geoffrey Rush) hired to prepare the king for his first wartime speech. It's the Odd Couple with a scepter when the unlikely duo become good chums and isn't that nice.
The actors, though, cannot be faulted. It's nice to see Firth do something more lively than the morose gay eulogy that was A Single Man, and Rush proves again that he can do no wrong -- they're an apt, dynamic pair. Most people know that I have an undying love for Helena Bonham Carter, so of course I ate up her tart rendition of the Queen Mum -- she's quick-tongued and witty. As much as I love her constant goth queen incarnations in Tim Burton's films, I wouldn't mind seeing her remind us of her range like this more often.
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