My review of The King's Speech

This is a midnight review so it isn't my best.



I know I'm in the super-minority here, but I felt that this film deserved Best Picture. and Director, and Actor and Screenplay(not so much in the minority for the last two). i fail to understand why people are so mad that this won. I thought that it was utterly amazing and it is pretty much tied with Black swan as my favorite of the year.


Acting/Characters: Man, Colin Firth rocked. Whenever he stuttered I felt as frustrated as the character did (in a good way). I absolutely adored his performance.  I also really liked Helena Bonham Carter too. She gave the best performance that I have ever seen her do. Geoffrey Rush also did an amazing job. I didn't realize Guy Pearce was in it until after I saw the movie. But the performances overall were as solid as the cast. They all did amazing and I would have not been sad if Rush had won last night. 10/10

Plot: Now, I know that people are saying that this film was predictable. But come on, if all of the directors who made predictable movies (good or bad) stopped making movies then we would only have people like Tarantino, Lynch, Nolan, Aronofski, and the Coens left to make movies...wait...that wouldn't be the worst thing ever...moving on... also, I have heard a lot of talk about how inaccurate the film was. well, I did some research about that and here is what I found that was inaccurate:

1. the stutter wasn't as bad as the film made it out to be

2. Churchill didn't support the abdication of Edward VIII

3. The crowd outside of the palace after the final speech wasn't there.

4. The brothers didn't have the bad relationship that they had in the film.

5. Colin firth doesn't look like the real George VI
But let's take a look at some other really really inaccurate films:
Gladiator
Braveheart
The Patriot
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
300
Amadeus
Shakespeare in Love
oh, and The Social Network isn't the most accurate thing either.

Long story short, a film doesn't have to be 100% accurate to be amazing. The plot might have been predictable, but it was still amazingly well done. 10/10

Screenplay: I thought that this was the best part. They especially did well with George VI. I thought that they did his lines amazingly well. they also wrote the Lougue/Bertie scenes really well. It was an overall amazing screenplay that totally deserved the win. 10/10

Likableness: This film was utterly amazing. I enjoyed it a lot. Like I said before, I feel that this totally deserved the win and this ties for my favorite of the year with Black Swan. If you still have yet to see this one, I highly suggest it. 10/10


Final Score: 40/40 100% (N)




TRIVIA TIME: 1. King George's first successful attempt at speaking is reciting Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. Many members of the cast have appeared in productions of Hamlet. Derek Jacobi played the title role in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, opposite Claire Bloom as Gertrude. In addition he played the Prince in over 400 performances on stage. Jacobi went on to play Claudius in Hamlet, in which Timothy Spall played Rosencrantz. Geoffrey Rush played Horatio in the Australian theater. Helena Bonham Carter played Ophelia in Hamlet

2. While preparing the film, the production knew that having some key cast would help the movie get made so the team took the highly unusual step of getting someone who lived near actor Geoffrey Rush to post the script through his letterbox. Although against industry practice, it did have a covering note apologizing for the unsolicited delivery and explained that they were desperate for him to know the script existed. Rush read the script and agreed to do the film.

3. The author, David Seidler suffered from a stammer as a child. Having heard George VI's wartime speech as a child, he (later in his adult life) had written to the Queen Mother asking for permission to use the King's story to create a film. The Queen Mother asked him not to during her lifetime, citing that the memories were too painful. Seidler respected her request.

4. Throughout the film, Lionel refuses to let Bertie smoke, saying "sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you." Owing largely to increased smoking to deal with the stress of World War Two, King George VI did indeed succumb to lung cancer on February 6th 1952.

5. This film has an Australian actor (Guy Pearce) playing a Brit, a British actor (Eve Best) playing an American and an American actor (Jennifer Ehle) playing an Australian.

6. Well, watch Tom Hopper's Oscar acceptance speech to get this one.