Screen One at Muswell Hill Odeon
On first impressions The Kings Speech appears a familiarly British affair; an historical drama full of period details, monarchical relations and the foremost of British acting talent. However, whilst Tom Hooper's latest shares a number of aesthetic and thematic elements to that of the Merchant-Ivory tradition, this is a much more amusing, intriguingly complex and heartfelt cinematic piece.
The film begins in 1925 with King George V's younger, Albert Duke of York (or Bertie as he's known by his fellow royals) attempting and failing to deliver a speech in front of the masses at Wembley Staduim. For Albert has the speech impediment, better known as a 'stammer'. This is a character study, a study of a stammering monarch. A study played out, despite the global implications of Bertie's speech impediment, in the most part within the confines of sparsely decorated Edwardian drawing rooms. Shot with a strong dose of visual flair, switching between beautifully framed wide shots to stark emotive close-ups this is a film that displays like no other the frustrating and confiding effect a stammer can have upon an individual.
When asked by Simon Mayo for his thoughts on the films opening scene and the initial construction of Bertie's character Colin Firth who brilliantly portrays the future King replied,
"I think this is one of the interesting aspects of the way the story is set up, the way Tom Hooper made it so personal, the way he came into peoples faces. You don't see (Albert) stepping out of a limo or a gold carriage, you see him in a squalid, damp corridor... utterly terrified. He's wearing a top hat and coat of the time but he's not wearing a crown and robes. So when you see him up on the microphone for the first time, you just see a human being doing what people fear most, public speaking." 1
Firth makes a very interesting point, far from the depiction of the monarchy in recent drama's such as Stephen Frears' The Queen Tom Hooper's portrayal of the vulnerable and eventually triumphant King Albert shows the monarchy in an ever more sympathetic and humanistic light, one that will resonate on both sides of the Atlantic with the royal wedding looming this Easter.
The film centres upon Albert's relationship with an Australian therapist Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush); a outsider, a foreigner and most significantly a 'commoner'. It's the dynamic between the two figures that Hooper plays upon to the greatest effect. Logue takes great pleasure in deriding the future King's previous medical advisers: "They're all idiots!", "They've been knighted!" replies Bertie. "Makes it official then, doesn't it?". Indeed such verbal sparring between the two abrasive characters is the films real joy rather than any of the triumphant sentiment of the films conclusion. For Firth, it's his third role as a stammering lead and his depiction of future King Albert is so expertly crafted and beautifully performed you begin to wonder if the Oscar nominee took his stammer and royal gown home with him from set each night. In an interview with The Guardian Firth reveals the physical impact the role had upon him,
'It had an effect on my body – headaches. I had to learn to stammer and then play someone trying desperately not to. It put my left arm to sleep – it was very peculiar. I must have been locking something, pinching a nerve. It was a semi-paralysis that would last for three or four days'. 2
Firth clearly put his all into this role and whilst he has never been regarded as a method actor in the same vein as the Brando's and De Niro's of this world, his portrayal of 'Bertie' is as heartfelt and as flawless a performance we are probably likely to ever see from him. An Oscar certainty if there ever was one. Rush on the other hand provides the perfect partner for Firth's character to bicker, console and rectify his growing concerns with. Probably best know prior to this as Borbassa from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Rush plays the Australian therapist with a brooding, underlining confidence that only experience can bring to such a role.
The social and political gravitas behind Albert's stammer is carefully built into the film, and is alluded to through poignant sequences. As Albert watches a clip of Hitler with his younger daughter she asks, 'what's he saying?'. 'I don't know but he seems to be saying it rather well' replies Albert in the downtrodden he adopts as his predicament reigns in on him. Indeed it is the threat of world war with Nazi Germany that gives the King's Speech it's historical and cultural significance, with the advent of live radio broadcasts the expectant King's verbal ineptitude adopts a new global significance. With Winston Churchill (aptly played by Timothy Spall) taking the head position in the run up to war Albert's role is one of national speaker and as he puts it himself; 'If I am King, where is my power? Can I declare war? Form a government? Levy a tax? No! And yet I am the seat of all authority because they think that when I speak, I speak for them and I can't speak'.
Overall, The Kings Speech is a triumph of British filmmaking one that critics and cinema audiences will look upon fondly for years to come. Heavily financed by the UK Film Council, the question remains where British films of a similar ilk are to come from in the future. Although if this is to be the last of it's kind for a while then what better way to revel in the homegrown directorial and acting talent on show. It's not quite a case of 'The British are Coming!' as it was with Chariots of Fire in 1982 but if directors such as Tom Hooper continue with such brash and confident filmmaking, there's no doubt the nations film industry will recover from the recent cuts by the Tory government.
____________________1 Colin Firth, BBC Radio 5 live Kermode and Mayo's Film Review, 7th January 2011
2 Colin Firth, The Guardian, 9th January 2011
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