The King's Speech

You can hate the movie but you can't- I guarantee- hate Colin Firth as King George VI! I don't say that you will like the man- I frowned quite consistently through certain parts of the movie at him- silently reproving the man- but as an actor- Oh, man!- he was the shiniest penny in the room and he would NOT be ignored.

The movie began with a speech in Wembley stadium at the close of the British Empire Exhibition in 1925.

Guess who was supposed to give it?

Oh, you're brilliant! Yes, it was Prince Bertie. In his middle age and very used to his inability to speak in public or even to his family without long pauses and tripping over words.

But his father wouldn't give up trying to cure him of it through forced exposure. King George V believed in tough love and the dutiful Bertie obliged to embarrassing effects. 

He stood in front of a thousand men and women of his kingdom and couldn't utter the word 'king'.

His brother Edward fell in love with a Mrs Simpson. It was nothing unusual, the heir-apparent liked married women.

This time though, Edward seemed peculiarly obsessed and when King George finally died from old age, Edward broke down crying (a most unseemly behaviour!) not because his father had passed away but because he was now trapped as King and as the head of the English Church, he could never marry Wallis (trying to become ex-Mrs. Simpson now) who was soon to become a twice divorced American.

I think that was one of the most interesting things about the movie- it actually showed Edward and Wallis as the jet setting\ self-obsessed and definitely unfit-for-throne couple that the royal family, then, must have thought them.

To later generations, Edward has been the King who abdicated for the love of a woman. His last speech was rather famous for it- when he said that he had to do this because he couldn't have the woman he loved by his side, many hearts melted a little. (He was the first in the Monarchy to ever give up the throne).

Bertie and Elizabeth played by Firth and Helena Carter are something to watch out for. I haven't seen much of Carter, but after Harry Potter's Beatrix I did wonder if the director had lost his mind to cast her as the future queen. Nope. They were pretty sane.

Now, THIS guy was...great at times and not so great at others. The prince is introduced to Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) by his wife. An Australian speech therapist, he did things...differently.

The problem with a movie often is that unless it is done perfectly, some characters inevitably get more space than others.

We were shown Lionel's family. A loving, patient wife who understood him and his three young boys who adored him. Lionel wanted to be an actor. He spent his life dreaming and working towards it, but now he was too old and set in his ways and the good roles seemed to pass him by. He did have a way with words and as an actor knew how to speak. It was through this talent that he began his profession as a therapist. Later in the movie, the prince is told that Lionel has no qualifications and he is angry with the man for fooling him. He admits that Lionel never asked him to call him 'doctor', it was something the king assumed and used to keep distance. A distance, Lionel never maintained- he kept insisting on calling the prince, Bertie.

As I said, some characters get too little space. At the end of the movie I was still wondering why we knew so little about his personal life and why did they keep showing his family's faces in certain moods if they were not going to follow through?

His moments with his family could have defined him so much better, but I was left in the dark. Why put the characters forward at all if you were not going to give them anything to do?

The prince's relationship with his therapist was unconventional and mostly grudging on Bertie's part (he was named after Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort- my favourite prince!). 

Thus my frowning. He was too ill mannered for a prince, though I suppose he was justified after decades of disappointed tutorship in speech correction.

The lovely thing about movies based on real life is that you the ending are true and good things did happen to the good people (the opposite is also true, but we wont think of that now).
Lionel earned the prince's friendship and maintained it through the rest of their lives. 
[p.s. I loved Churchill and the play-director!]

Ah, well. You go watch the movie, now. I have stuff to do.