The King's Speech: The Rocky of Speech Therapy Movies

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The King's Speech: The Rocky of Speech Therapy Movies

by Zach Oat November 30, 2010 2:14 PM

The King's Speech was the first movie in a long time that I've gone into without

seeing a trailer for in advance. I figured, " The buzz is great, the actors are

great, the director is great, so why bother? " So, despite having actually

attended speech therapy sessions with a family member, I wasn't sure how the

thrilling story of a king learning to cure his stutter was going to play out. It

turns out it plays out very much like Rocky, or Days of Thunder, or any other

sports movie where an underdog, through commitment and dedication, becomes a

champion, only in this case they're a champion at reading good.

I'm actually glad I didn't watch the trailer, because not only would it have

spoiled the ending for me (my English history is spotty), it would have been

misleading. Colin Firth isn't the king at first -- he plays Prince Albert, the

Duke of York, and his father King V (Albus Dumbledore Gambon) is

still alive and quite overbearing when the movie begins. Albert's older brother

(Guy Pearce) is next in line to the throne, and while there's a chance he

may be ineligible if he continues his relationship with a twice-married

American, mainly Albert just wants his speech impediment cured, after decades of

embarrassment and torment. Yeah -- the Duke of York had it pretty rough as a

kid, if you can believe it. Remind me never to be royalty and have knock-knees.

Also, suck up to the nanny.

His wife , the future Queen Mum (the restrainedly charming Bellatrix

LeStrange Helena Bonham ), enlists a series of therapists to help her

husband, but none seem to work until she finds an Australian expatriate named

Lionel Logue (Captain Barbossa Geoffrey Rush) with unorthodox but highly

effective methods. After a bit of antagonism between the pair, Lionel and

" Bertie " grow to respect one another, and even get a montage, in which Firth

does everything but punch a side of beef. But as the family drama progresses, as

do political complications with Germany, the stakes become higher, and Albert

must deal with the fears that keep him from speaking clearly, mostly having to

do with being part of the world's most famously messed-up family. The American

trailer is a little ham-fisted with the emotional breakthrough and climactic

speech that wrap up the film, but the climax of the film itself is actually

incredibly moving, and has you on tenterhooks with each lengthy pause in his

delivery.

Director Tom Hooper (The Damned United) successfully walks the line between the

dramatic and the comedic in the script by Seidler (Tucker), and gets great

performances from an immensely talented cast. Firth is, frankly, amazing, and

the combination of his dramatic triumphant performance with his audible handicap

is the stuff nominations are made of, so I expect to see him score a

second nomination this year, and even a win would not be out of the question.

Rush is surely a lock for a Supporting Actor nod, but I'd say he deserved Best

Actor if Firth weren't right there. (Besides, he's already got one of those.)

's supporting role is unspectacular, but funny and refreshingly pleasant,

and Wormtail Spall steals the scene every time he shows up as a froglike

Winston Churchill.

If you haven't seen the trailer for this movie yet, don't -- just go see the

film. The trailer chops and edits and makes the movie look like an -baiting

cliche, and not the -worthy film it actually is.

Did you see The King's Speech? Let us know what you thought below, then check

out our guide to the end-of-the-year movies. And read more movie reviews here!

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