The King's Speech

We saw The King's Speech last night. There's been a lot of hype surrounding it, mainly for the Oscars. And while it's probably not the best movie I've ever seen (and not in the usual category of movies I see), it's definitely going into my list of favourite movies where nothing happens (joining Field of Dreams, The Rookie, October Sky, and The World's Fastest Indian).

It opens up at Wimbledon in the mid 30's, where Prince Albert is about to deliver the first radio address of his life. I'm not sure if it's possible to look dignified and terrified at the same time, but Colin Firth (playing Prince Albert) gets the closest. You can see the dread, but it's very subtle. He's in a hallway, being quietly encouraged by his wife (Elizabeth, played by Helena Bonham Carter, whom you may not recognize outside of a movie directed by Tim Burton or starring Johnny Depp). After a few scenes of a radio voice announcing the upcoming speech, Albert walks up some corridors and to the stands, coming to a halt in front of the microphone. The red light blinks three times, then becomes steady, and he's live. Dead air ensues. A few words emerge, a few torn sentences, and it mercifully cuts to a later session of him with a speech therapist. A bad speech therapist, who encourages him to smoke ("to relax the throat") and gets him to put marbles in his mouth to encourage enunciation. It doesn't work, and Albert nearly chokes on the marbles before storming out.

His wife manages to find Lionel Logue, a rather unconventional speech therapist, and wheedles an appointment out of him after telling him he'll be practicing on the Duke of York. Heady stuff.

The first meeting goes awkwardly, as it does in most movies where the protagonists are strangers at the beginning of the movie but best friends at the end. I guess real life is like the movies in some ways, and the story of two people who got along as soon as they met would be rather boring. Still, Albert shows he can speak in the occasional clear sentence if he gets really pissed off. Logue records him reciting Shakespeare while listening to chamber music on headphones, to distract him from the sound of his own voice.

After giving up, he finally listens to the recording, his wife hears it, and it cuts to them back in Logue’s office. A montage ensues, with them working on mechanics, relaxing various body parts, shouting at open windows, and a speech Albert's trying to make at the opening of the manufacturing plant. Despite a few hiccups (not literal ones), it goes decently.

Problems arise when the King passes away, and Albert's brother Edward becomes King. He's a bit of a playboy, and takes up with a married woman ("she put in a petition for divorce"). Because the King is the head of the Church of England, and the head of the church can't marry a divorced woman, Edward eventually abdicates to be with the love of his life. The Monarchy falls to Albert, who takes the name King George VI. He gets Logue's help in more speeches after a bit of a fight.

Unfortunately, Neville Chamberlain announces that Germany has not retreated from Poland, and now a state of war exists between them and Britain. King George must make a speech to the masses to encourage them to fight and uphold the principles of democracy and all that other good stuff, yada, yada yada.

There’s a lot of preparation for the speech (is it the title, after all, unless the title was actually referring to the King’s ability to speak … touché, Movie Title). Most of it is alright, and we watch as Albert uses all the tricks he’s learned to get through it. Bouncing onto P’s (“apeople”), or stringing swear words together to get through pauses (he’s quite the smooth speaker when he curses up a blue streak). Finally the moment arrives, and he walks through many corridors in the palace (wow, it’s like a call-back to the first scene of the film) to the radio room, where everyone exits except for Albert and Logue. Logue tells him to just speak to him, since he’s a friend. The speech has a few pauses, but it adds to the solemnity of it (they’re declaring war, after all), so everything goes well, and then he gets congratulated by everyone, and profusely thanks Logue. And then the credits roll.

There are a lot of good things about this movie. The acting is tremendous, but that’s a given. Colin Firth, Geoffrey Bush, and Helena Bonham Carter are all incredible actors. The thing that caught me off guard was the amount of humour in the movie. At one point, they’re talking about all of Albert’s previous speech therapists. Logue calls them idiots. Albert says “They’ve been knighted.” Logue responds “Well, that just makes it official.” And after the titular speech, Logue merrily whispers “You still stammered on the W’s.” Albert replies “I had to do something so they’d know it was me.”

Another thing that caught my eye was the subtlety. Well, either that or I was reading too much into the movie. For instance, the Logues are listening to Chamberlain declaring war on the radio, and their oldest son rushes into the room. We’re left to question whether he’ll end up fighting (possibly dying) in the upcoming war. Another example would be the stammering itself. In most media, stammering means that the person repeats the sound a few times before getting to the rest of the word “p-p-p-people” whereas here, Albert pauses and struggles to say the word in the first places “ … people.” It makes it more believable since it’s different than what we’re used to. And Firth continues it for the entire movie, shortening the pauses when he’s getting better, and adding more when he’s doing worse. It just looks like his vocal cords have seized up.

The only nit I have to pick is at the very end. After the speech, everyone congratulates him on doing a good job (to be fair, it was a good job). The only problem with this satisfying ending is that it contrasts sharply with the tone of the speech itself. He’s just launched his country into war. The last one claimed nine million lives. I doubt that anyone could have predicted the enormous casualty total of World War II, but even so, one would expect most people to be a little reticent about engaging in another war. It just struck me as jarring, but that’s after the benefit of hindsight.

I’m not sure how to rate this movie. It can easily be seen at home. There are no explosions or gargantuan special effects that need to be properly experienced on the silver screen. No booming sound that needs to properly be heard from speakers big enough to rattle internal organs. Still, purely ratings-wise, it’s a theatre movie for me.