TAG TEAM REVIEW: THE KING'S SPEECH

Great job, and I couldn't agree more. For people like me who are terrified of public speaking, this plays like ROCKY. I hope folks that feel it might be obvious Oscar bait or a stuffy English bore go see this, because it's so damned entertaining and uplifting.

This is such a wonderfully entertaining movie. Am I allowed to use the word bromance in regards to Firth and Rush's interactions? That's probably doing their relationship an injustice, because it's wonderful to watch them play off each other. Firth is dynamite. It's funny, you always hear that actors put on an English accent, but here he (Englishman) puts on a completely different voice. Marvelous work from all involved.

Miraculously, this comes out here in a couple of days. I'm pretty much shocked.

Not out here yet, but I can't wait.

This might be one of my favourite films of the year and seen as how I'm not one of these sadsacks who genuinely believe this to be the worst year in movies EVER that means something.

Brilliant review guys, I really hope Firth gets the nod this year because his performance in A SINGLE MAN was simply stunning.

Fucking shitcock! Fucking asshole motherfucking sons of bitches! Dickbag shitslurping morons!

Such a naive asshole, I was. Yeah, it's coming out all right. I just need to make a 1100km round-trip to watch it. Fuck, I hate being a movie fan in Greece.

This was fantastic. Delightful. There isn't really much more I can say about it. It's so beautifully self-contained. Before I'd read all the praise, I foolishly assumed that this would just be some stuffy prestige pic. NOT SO. I would even say that it's one of the most tense films of the year. My heart pounded fast for the prince's dilemma.

I didn't even pay attention to the rating this got in the US, but I'm assuming it's R for language. So dumb and arbitrary in this case.

My favorite scene is an obvious one. Since this is almost nearly an underdog sports movie, there must be a pre-3rd act hiccup. And the reveal that Lionel is not a real doctor could've easily come across contrived (fact OR fiction). But I love the way this film dispensed with it quickly without it feeling obligatory or rushed. It takes care of it right then and there with a fantastic scene of understanding between two men.

Derek Jacobi looked ready to kill. Hahahahahahah

This was the the second on my double bill with True Grit last night. I sat on the edge of my seat most of the movie. Nearly as funny, more tense than Grit, this is understated acting on the level of phenomenal that the script was in The Social Network.

My only nitpick, and I hate that word but use it appropriately here, is if Lionel was Australian why wasn't he drawing out his A's? That is the only issue I have with this.

As for the review:

This, a hundred times this. There are three or four MORE films I would happily sit down and watch based on the background relationships in this film. I'd watch a movie about Dumbledore and his boys, Barbosa and his wife, Edmund Exley and the life he chose via abdication.

As to the last one, I don't think Pearce sold the romanticized version, the relationship and abdication were definitely played out in my mind as lust. I'd like to see why that was so on repeat viewings, what aspect of the themes is that portrayal linked to.

Oscar bait? British bore? Hardly, this is an edge of your seat, well paced....arrghh, the genre eludes me. But it is nothing close to the first two. From the opening scene to the credits I don't think I could have been disengaged.

Also,

Did anyone else notice a stylistic choice when there was only one actor on screen they were almost always offset in the left hand portion of the screen. Barely was a scene like this where the camera centered on the character.

Am I just taking some quirk and making a big deal out of it?

Not always to the left, but they certainly tended to be pushed to the side of the composition in a noticeable way. It was particularly noticeable when it came to the back and forth between Firth and Rush. I've definitely seen other films present a conversation between two people this way, but I'm hard-pressed to come up with any examples right now.

It actually made me think of the story about Soderbergh's retirement and him saying that if he had to do one more "over-the-shoulder" shot, he'd kill himself. Maybe Hooper is trying to stay alive as well!

Ebert also had something to say about Hooper's visual approach to the story. It wasn't about the framing you're talking about, but perhaps it's connected?
Actually, I noticed this trend with some of the exterior shots of this film as well. There would be a shot of Albert being driven to Lionel's office and the shot was of such a wide-angle that the buildings and the perspective were very distorted. Almost tunnel-like.

I've only seen the clip they played on Letterman and it stood out hugely to me there, almost in a distracting way. You liked it in the film?

Yeah, I thought it was all over the place, not just left and right but up and down too.

You weren't asking me, but I actually liked it. It was done in a consistent enough way where, though I noticed it, it ended up not feeling distracting.

I've only seen the film once, but I believe that this visual quirk becomes less prominent by the end of the film once the two main characters accept each other as friends. Perhaps the strange composition earlier in the film was meant to get us feeling the tense and hesitant feelings that Albert had towards Lionel?

The conversations I could see going side to side in the framing but the one sidedness of the individual character shots was an interesting touch.

And I didn't connect the tunnel feeling to Bertie's throat but yeah I can see that.

It didn't distract nor did it irk; it was, as mcnooj says below, consistent enough to not distract.

The hallways remain and are rather pronounced during the war speech but yes, the shift to centered framing does occur almost to the point where over-the-shoulder shots of Firth in the booth have him and Rush sharing the center of the frame.

Thinking back on it now, the way the shots were composed made the settings feel much more prominent. I certainly didn't mind that, as the sets were gorgeous. Some of the wallpaper reminded me of the ones in Oldboy.

There is a particular scene I'm thinking about as Albert has one of his sessions with Lionel. If played out as a wide shot, we would be watching Rush sit on a seat to the left of Firth, who is sitting and tinkering with a model biplane. A more conventional way of delivering the close-ups of such a scene in two shots would be to have:

-one shot of Rush's face on the left side of the frame
-the other shot being Firth's face on the right side of his close-up

When delivered like this, there isn't a sense of the other side of the frame feeling empty, as it is filled in with the 'gaze' of the eye-line between the actors.

Instead, the film does the opposite.
-Rush's close-up pushes his face to the right even as he's looking towards screen-right. It looks like he's looking right at the edge of the frame.
-Vice-versa for Firth, who is pushed to the left of the composition.

This presentation of a conversation between two characters make the rest of the frame very prominent since there is no 'gaze' to fill that empty air. On an abstract level, there is nothing going on in the rest of the frame. I'm curious as to what unconscious effect this has on an audience member who normally wouldn't think about shot composition and film editing. Does it feel more intimate? Or does it feel more distancing?

I DON'T KNOOOOOOW.

For me, it made some of the scenes between Firth and Rush intimate while awkward.

EDIT: Urg, I don't think I was all that clear in my explanation...

I know the scene you are referring to but I have to disagree that Rush is looking screen right. IIRC his chair is "facing the audience" and is open away from the table between the two chairs. Firth's chair is directly facing the table.

Rush seems to only cast sideways glances towards Firth once he allows him to begin tinkering with the plane. Prior to that he seemed to be engaged face on with him slightly but as Firth becomes "enamored" with the model work it seems like they are again at a dynamic where they are in the same room but world's apart. Which contrasts nicely with my feelings about the wide portions of that scene as below.

Also, I think a good deal of this scene is shot from the floor almost looking up and over the table between them which to me felt like an embodiment of the equality Lionel demanded in his sessions. Here was not a king and a commoner but two men having a drink and opening up to each other. Intimacy I can agree, awkward I never got.

And speaking of scenes in particular, the "reveal"? From Bertie saying, "I'm not here to practice" to Rush dancing a fine line wherein his facial expression nearly becomes "hand caught in the cookie jar" but his voice never betrays his belief in what he does without what the archbishop thinks he needs all the way to Bertie finding his voice through his temper about the chair. My god....

You're definitely right about Rush's eyeline in that scene. I was just trying to simplify my explanation because I was having a hard time trying to explain it to anyone who may not have seen the movie yet.

Going along with your comment about the "same room, but world's apart"... Perhaps the shots of characters offset to the side of the frame is meant to accentuate their respective domains early in the film when their relationship is more "royalty vs. AUSTRALIAN!" Hehehe

The capper to that "chair temper" scene is the moment Rush tells Bertie that he's the bravest man he'd ever known. LUMP IN THROAT.

Fantastic film. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be as funny as it was.

I just watched the trailer for the film. I'm so glad I got to see the film without seeing the trailer. It's one of those that uses too many of the film's key moments.

Such a great one. Count me in the "didn't expect that much humor" category. I had also managed to miss the full trailer, I think-- maybe I'd just seen a clip on a talk show, or something.

Loved it.

Mark me in the "thought it was going to be a stuffy British Drama" but then got bowled over by just how...I don't know, perfect it was. Everything's so heartfelt. Great film, and I'm encouraging everyone I know to catch it.

Just saw this yesterday, and absolutely loved it. Great dialogue delivered by two great actors. Really quotable.

 

"Do you know any jokes?"

"Timing isn't my strong suit."

 

"My physicians tell me helps relax the throat."

"They're idiots."

"They've been knighted."

"Makes it official then."

 

"There's a bob in this, you could be a rich man."

 

Also, the best use of swearing I've ever seen in a movie. Had me rolling. I also wanted to echo how great the background characters are. I could watch a whole movie just about the relationship between the brothers, the speech therapist trying to be an actor, the king's wonderful relationship with his daughters, and on and on. Everything feels developed and lived-in. It's not complicated, just a simple story well told.

Such a great movie.  Everything worked the way it was supposed to. There wasn't a single missplaced line, preformance or scene. Above all, Firth is magnificent. I often tend to find that in films of this sort the main role tends to get upstaged by the "supporting" characters. Not this one. The man kicked ass. Even though the movie consisted of scenes of him being put in difficult and embarassing situations, he never came off as someone pathetic. As a lesser man than his peers. I loved him.

Wanted to cheer when Albert finally gave Lionel the shilling he owed him.

Finally saw it yesterday (in a packed theatre on a Sunday afternoon, which was nice, particularly since the only time anyone in the audience spoke was an obviously delighted anticipation of Firth's line about not carrying money).

 

While I'll second most of the given reasons for enjoying it, I was particularly struck by the comment about how rich the background stories are: it's true, I'd watch Gambon or Pearce in a full-scale bio of those characters in a heartbeat.

 

Two tiny distractions: going in, I was trying to remember who played Churchill, and when Spall showed up, his cartoony look took me out of it just a bit. But Churchill was so close to a caricature of himself in real life that I don't know what actor wouldn't have done so.

 

And maybe I was just hyper-aware of it because my mom and daughter were in the theater next door watching the live L.A. Phil performance of Beethoven's Seventh, but its use in the film seemed an odd backdrop to a speech going to war with Germany. I assume its earlier use in the gramophone scene was fact-based, but it still struck an odd note (though the only equally-familiar British piece I can think of would have been "Pomp and Circumstance," which would have been infinitely worse).

 

And my wife observed that Derek Jacobi has grown to look exactly like he was made up in I, Claudius.

And I have to add just how great I found the scene with Lionel's family listening to the news about the war on the radio. I literally felt a knot in my stomach as I heard the radio announcer say that as of now they were at war with Germany. It was a given of course, but the announcement felt so weighty.

I saw this on my birthday during what has become my own little tradition of a day at the movies. Unexpectedly, it ended up being my favorite of the day.  One that included the likes of 127 Hours, The Fighter, and True Grit.  Before going in, I knew the least about this one out of all the rest and I'm glad that was the case.  I was pretty surprised at how great it was.  Rush was spectacular in an all-around great cast.  Easily one my favorites of 2010.

Saw this last weekend, and wanted to add my kudos. It's really a terrific film - and this is coming from someone who hates period and/or costume dramas as a general rule. Firth gives a fantastically human performance; without a lot of melodrama, the film and Firth evoked a shitload of empathy and sympathy from me for Bertie. Crushing social pressures, demanding and emotionally distant parents, and an older sibling who seems to sail through life with nary a worry or negative consequence. Without making us forget Bertie's privileges, we're able to see the near-universal crap he's dealing with....and how soulcrushing his stutter is. We can feel him wilt inside, curse himself and his circumstances, as his life requires more and more public speaking - and Firth manages, with very little "showy" acting, to communicate how Bertie struggles with anger and self-loathing.

 

I wish the film had explored how Bertie's anger was connected to him not stuttering - but again, the light touch may have been because it wasn't something he actually delved into in real life, and that kind of emotional therapy was, at its best, in its infancy in those days. I can also understand, from a storytelling POV, that doing that could have easily changed the tenor and feel of the film.

 

The supporting cast is also really terrific; my feeling was that Rush was good, but not great - but it could easily be the sort of "quiet" role that Christian Bale referenced at the Golden Globes. I'll be seeing this again, so I'll keep a closer eye on Rush's performance. The other actor that stood out, to me, was Pearce as Edward. He didn't have a lot of screen time, and in some ways it's an archetypical role, but Pearce still gave a shaded, three dimensional performance. I managed to both like and dislike Edward - his romanticism and desire for a full life are appealing - but he also easily reverts to treating Bertie like shit when it suits his needs.

 

Bertie's triumph in giving the WWII speech was palpable, and what I loved about it was that he wasn't glib or slick sounding. He still struggled, but delivered the speech and did so without embarrassing himself - indeed, helped inspire his subjects and communicate resolve and courage. The walk through the rooms afterwards made me want to cheer.

 

I loved the film, although I thought Rush's character was a bit of a cipher. The scene in Westminster where he tells Bertie how he became a speech therapist during wartime filled in a lot of blanks, but I thought the scenes showing his family didn't make much of an impact.

 

 

I was somewhat concerned that his final speech would be a triumph of oration, but Firth's halting delivery was perfect, adding tension to the triumph.
 

 

 

Interesting, as I thought the family scenes helped fill the character out. But I do understand what you're saying. Did you notice, though, that Logue stammered a couple of times? I wondered if his "experience" started out with him overcoming his own stammering/stuttering. When he auditioned for the play and they called out his enunciation, I thought that may hint at more than just a background as a speech therapist - maybe Logue was "over pronuncing" to compensate for his habit of stammering.

I completely forgot that he was lectured on his enunciation during the audition scene.

 

I thought the family stuff was light, but I'm not sure how much they added to the overall story. It seemed primarily to setup the humorous moment when Logue's wife arrives to see Bertie and his wife there.

I saw this two weeks ago and could have sworn that I posted about it, but I guess that was me misremembering a conversation with a friend of mine. Yeah, it's brilliant, and a really full experience. Not a single weak performance in the supporting cast, Helena Bonham Carter in particular reminded me that she can the own the screen with seemingly effortless grace when given the right material. That said, this is Firth's film. I have a brother who stutters, not nearly as severely as Bertie, but it's always been something that irritated him and having grown up around it, it made me appreciate how technically difficult it has to be to act the impediment and make it feel real and natural.

 

It was a tad strange to be both cognizant of Firth's skill and be completely wrapped up in the character all at once, but that's the kind of performance it is, and Firth, whom I've always admired, totally kills it. He's amazing.

I think Logue's scenes without Firth were to simply paint the class contrast between the two main characters.  Also, I think he was called out for being Australian in the audition scene (which is an ongoing detail through the film).

Here's the part where I pour on the love for this film and whole-heartedly agree with all the praise and hoop-la.

 

I bloody love Colin Firth. I mean, I've liked him for years - I guess since an ex forced me to watch the Beeb's Pride and Prejudice a decade and a half ago and I accidentally liked it - but I feel comfortable revealing in front of you all now that I bloody love him. Under "class" in the Oxford there ought to be a picture of the man. If he's not Sir Colin by this time next year I shall be very put out. He makes me want to use words like "ought" and "shall".

 

I agree with all the other good things too, like the other performances (Logue is the best pretence-skewering Aussie character since Mick Dundee), the finely handled, schmaltz-free tone (like Nick said - not drenched in forced external conflict), the light humour balanced against the sobering gravity of that pre-war era and the evocative cinematography. Top notch all round.

 

 

One little note on the review - where Renn says that Helena Bonham-Carter, "plays the Duchess of York (and eventually Queen Elizabeth)" he should have said "(eventually the Queen Mother)". It's her and Bertie's young daughter Elizabeth who becomes Queen Liz II.

Watched it again at a "screener party" last week (one of my brothers is a SAG member, who was probably being naughty by inviting us over), and was again struck by the ease with which it avoided melodrama; as others have noted, both in the revelation about Logue's lack of credentials, and the struggles that Bertie is still undergoing during his climactic speech.

 

But one I don't know that I've seen mentioned is that, by the time war arrives, Logue's eldest son certainly looks to be of military age, and plenty of filmmakers would have milked that pretty hard. You can read the potential impact in Ehle's face and body language during the radio scene, but that's it.

It was a good movie but I personally don't understand the huge out-pouring of love towards it.

 

The single weirdest thing about the movie for me (apart from how old Derek Jacobi actually looks a lot like young Derek Jacoi in old Claudius makeup) was everyone applauding him at the end.  I mean, yes he got over his speech defect and yes that was hard work etc etc but he's just declared WAR.  And he comes out and everyone gives him a standing ovation.  That really took me out of the movie.

That's a fascinating perspective. Those of us in the "older" group hereabouts, while certainly not old enough to have lived through World War II, are definitely old enough to have lived with people who fought in it, and whose memories of the threat of Nazism, and the bombing of London, stayed with them for life. The idea that England would risk facing down the Nazi war machine, rather than capitulate, was seen by an earlier generation as an act of national heroism, more than worthy of applause.

 

And my wife made the exact same comment about Jacobi.

 

About everyone's reactions to Bertie's speech, Jeb is right on the money. The attitude over here and I'm guessing in England was positively celebratory when war was finaly declared. It was months of tension and doubt suddenly released with a huge "Surrender? Fuck you! Make me surrender if you can!" 

I think Nick and some others have nailed one of the more abstract reasons a lot of us love the film: the refusal to descend into melodrama, despite how easy it would have been (and conventionally expected). The scene in the cathedral when Logue's lack of formal certification is brought to light could have been used for all sorts of forced drama (and would have been in a lesser director and writer's hands); instead, it's used for character development and moving the story forward.

 

And I love the film because it manages to take someone who lives in incredible privilege and shows us not only that "things are tough all over" indeed, but makes Bertie a validly sympathetic character - not a victim, not a spotless hero, but a real man who finds a true friend and triumphs over an emotionally crippling and shaming condition. And it does all this without being heavy handed or over the top about it. There's a steady, subtle feel to the film.

You're never going to find happiness if you hold everything up the unattainable standards of TRON: LEGACY.

 

One thing that resonated with me: the inherent goodness of Bertie, the hopes and fears he had about leadership, the desire to not fuck it up for the country that called him "king". In an age of weaselly politicians and world leaders who don't seem to know the meaning of the words integrity, honesty and character, this was a WEST WING-like salve. I'd also love anti-monarchists like PK to watch this and try to tell me with a straight face that the system that produces Dubya is inherently better than one included such a dignified, reserved public figurehead.

Boo, you royalist scum! Let's see how you act once Prince Philip comes around, decides to invoke the Primae Noctis rule and de-flowers your wife at the night of your wedding.

 

Oh, big deal. I was deflowered by a prince, a Duke, AND an Earl before I even reached college, and I turned out fine!

One of the things the film left me thinking about is that, in some ways, Bertie's stammer was as much a gift as it was a curse. Granted, this is based on the film version of the character, but I can't help but wonder if he would have had such a great mix of humility and resolve without it. Unlike Edward, who viewed it as a chance to party and screw, Bertie retained a vision of dignity and honor for the crown.

Jesus, this was brilliant.  I would have no problem with this film stealing The Social Network's thunder come Oscar night.

 

Pretty much everything has already been covered about what makes this such a fine film, but there are two key moments in this film that really got to me: the bedtime story scene and the moment where the princesses see their father in his royal uniform.  There is such warmth in that first scene as the girls listen intently to their father's story.  I was very touched by how they didn't give a shit about his stammer.  They just wanted to hear their dad tell a story.  It was a family, not a royal family.  Then, when they see him in that uniform, the warmth is gone.  They don't grab onto him and hug him as they did before.  It's all business.  They curtsy.  And in that moment, the look on Bertie's face...for lack of a better phrase, he knows that shit just got real.