The King’s Speech propels Colin Firth into first place as a contender for the 2010 Best Actor Oscar. Geoffrey Rush should win for Best Supporting Actor. It may be the best movie I’ve seen this year.
Tom Hooper’s direction is exquisitely detailed, David Seidler’s screenplay remarkably precise and organic. Cinematographer Danny Cohen films actors in wide close-up, settings in great depth; contrast the scenes featuring Firth in a recording booth with those in Westminster Abbey. The visual dynamism, at exciting odds with the muted palette, supports the dramatic arc of the story.
Packed with great, legacy British actors such as Michael Gambon (George V), Timothy Spall (Winston Churchill), Derek Jacobi (the archbishop of Canterbury) and Claire Bloom (Queen Mary), the movie is a tribute to tradition that celebrates the very shattering of tradition. It’s a triumph of communication. It’s also very British, its look faithful to the period.
Firth plays Bertie, aka George VI, one of the sons of the bullying George V. Bertie becomes king when his popinjay brother, who briefly rules as Edward VIII, abdicates the throne so he can marry twice-divorced American social climber Wallis Simpson.
Rush plays Lionel Logue, Bertie’s speech therapist.
That’s the film’s subtext, embedded in a richly visualized tapestry of the interregnum between world wars I and II, when Bertie (aka Prince Albert, the Duke of York) came of age and the monarchy, helpless against the tide of technology, began to democratize.
