The King’s Speech

I’ve said it before, but I’ll reiterate, that biopics only seem to work when they feature a segment of the subject’s life and not just their entire life. A few years ago we saw this with The Queen, and now we get the same for her father King George VI as we are told the tale of his speech impediment and his quest to become the voice of England despite his problem.

What an enjoyable movie. There is a really good script here which establishes a good growing friendship between the king (Colin Firth) and his speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) while throwing some unexpected humour at us every now and again. The acting is top notch by most everyone in the film and as things start to get serious near the end , as that fateful war approaches, the movie seems to really take things up to that next level.

There are some problems with The King’s Speech, one of which is simply its formulaic storyline. This is most evident in the first half and the growing relationship between Firth and Rush. They meet awkwardly, the king grows to trust him in a time of need, they have a falling out at precisely the right moment, etc. There’s also some glaringly contrived moments, such as the “I have a voice!” – “yes, you do” line.

However, these are really easy to overlook when the film is as charming and pleasant to watch as it is. There is a lot here to like and by the end you are really cheering for the king to take his destiny in his hands and rise to the occasion. I really liked it.
8/10