The King's Speech- Review
Another review. No spoilers for this one since almost everything you need to know is in the trailer.
I will start out by saying of how I came to learn of this wonderful movie and where I went to watch it. Yahoo and iTunes Movie Trailers are my very best friends when it comes to new movie trailers and such (although I will say that Yahoo does release some trailers before iTunes does) and I found it in Yahoo (since I make it a habit to check the Yahoo home page once a day for news). It looked interesting so I decided to check it out. Ok, maybe interesting is not the right word- but epic maybe? The trailer just really gave me a sense that it was going to be a powerful movie. I went with razzlie to watch it in the movie theatre in the mall close to my school, since she had always been curious how it would be like to watch a movie there. I will say that it has a very odd system of purchasing tickets (you have to purchase your tickets and choose the seats where you want to sit in), and I didn't really like that very much, since it limits where you want to sit (e.g. you can only sit in the available seats and if you buy them at the last minute, you'd probably get stuck at the very front where no one likes to sit). There was also a bunch of old people watching it, which always makes me feel a little strange. It makes me feel a little more cultured, I guess, but also old fashioned.
Anywho, enough of my movie experience. Onto the plot! If you watch the trailer it pretty much says it all. King George VI or Albert (er not yet King at the start of the film, but a Duke> I will refer to him as Albert in the review so that no one gets confused when I talk about his dad, King George V) had stammering problems. He seeks the help of a speech therapist in order to improve. His father dies and WWII breaks out. Albert suddenly finds himself becoming king. The movie ends with his speech announcing the involvement of the British Empire in WWII.
I will start out with the simple problems that Albert faces that the movie highlights, and by which I did it does an excellent job at.
1) his stammering problems. The movie makes it painfully clear that Albert has a horrible stammering problem. The start of the movie begins with one of speeches, which he fails to deliver with clarity. His wife is disappointed. But what I really liked about that scene is that you can tell by everyone's faces, and I do mean everyone, how horribly painful it was for everyone to hear. It was nerve-racking for Albert. His anxiousness before making the speech is palpable to everyone. His advisers try to calm him down ('You'll be fine') and his wife tries to support him. When he steps up to make the speech, he tries to calm his nerves, but he can't, and he carries on stammering the whole way. People in the audience turn around to see him and everyone is watching him. Once he makes it through his speech, some people turn away, because its just so obviously painful to both watch and hear. I think the movie (with this scene along with others) really does capture Albert's feelings as well as make us sympathesize with him. I mean, who doesn't get nervous making speeches or speaking in front of crowds? I also think the movie captures perfectly how this problem, this one problem, truly dominates Albert's life. You can tell that with his sessions with the speech therapists, as well with Lionel (Geoffrey Rush), how frustrating it is for him. He's just angry with himself for not being able to speak properly and it just infuriates him whenever he tries to get better. He just tries and tries and you can tell that he lost hope. He gets frustrates easily because....honestly, who wouldn't? This problem even goes back to how his family, mainly his father, treats him. You can tell that King George V doesn't take the problem as seriously as he should. He sort of sees it like 'hey, stop doing that. you're just being foolish and childish by doing all this. Why don't you get a grip on yourself and get past this?' I mean he doesn't say that but that's what I think that he's thinking. You can certainly tell how it effects his opinion of Albert. The scene of his deathbed reveals this most clearly.
2) Being royalty. I know that doesn't seem like much of a problem but royals don't have it easy either and what I love about this movie is that it does remind us that Kings and Queens are human, just like us, and they have problems too. One of the things that I should remind everyone is that a royal family is not like a normal family, and the movie does illustrate that. When King George V dies and Albert goes to Lionel's office to just talk, Lionel asks him if he was close to anyone in his family (eg his father or brother). Albert doesn't say no but he doesn't say yes either. I think that this most excellently demonstrates how royal families defer from normal families. Normal families live together, siblings live together and they grow to love one another or at least like each other in some way. Royal families don't live together like normal ones do (Think Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the Tudors, who didn't get along despite being half-sisters and having more in common with each other than with anyone else) and so don't develop as strong familial bonds that normal families do.
Another issue that the movie addresses is the difficulty of being a King. *spoiler here* Albert's own brother abdicates the throne because he wanted to marry an American instead of a noble *spoiler ends* And when Albert becomes King, you can tell that it makes him more distant from his own family. When he comes home after (I guess) signing the papers that made him King, he comes home to his daughters. He opens his arms, expecting a hug from his two daughter. And instead they just curtsy to him. That scene was just....really sad and it touched my heart. You could just really tell how hurt he was by it, but also coming to the realizations of who he is now. He's a king, and he can't really expect his life to be what it once was.
Now I'm just going to blabber on since I really can't think of a way to organize my thoughts and opinion and fit them into some sort of category or criteria.
I'll start with how effective the movie was with demonstrating how much Lionel helped Albert, not just with his speech, but with his life. One of the things that Lionel himself mentions that stammers are scared-cats in a way. They fear people, large crowds, and they even fear speaking, afraid of sounding foolish or being ridiculed. I think the movie does an excellent job demonstrating how much fear Albert had when even speaking, so afraid that he couldn't even defend himself when his brother insulted him (a scene that made tears come to my eyes. Oh, Guy Pearce, you are so cruel and yet so good looking *o*). How his own fear just muted him. And i think that Lionel (ok not think) helps him not only speak but gain confidence in himself. Lionel becomes his friend and sees his potential, that Albert could be a great king. I think the two scenes that most evidently demonstrates this potential is what King George V says about Albert before he dies and the scene when Albert confronts his brother about the indulgent life he's leading (both of which, I consider to be very sad scenes).
The first scene, King George V sort of says something about Albert's brother (played by Guy Pearce. Sexy devil). I don't remember exactly what he said but it was along the lines of something like 'you best get your act together because even your brother is able to do his job.' Although, I know it was meant to belittle both of his sons (although someone, I guess, could interpret it as maybe slight praise of Albert?) but I sort of got a glimpse of a bigger picture, the same glimpse that Lionel has about Albert. What I felt that it revealed that even though Albert had this problem, he was brave enough to face it head on because his duty called for it. I thought that it just proved how truly devoted Albert was to his duty to face his fears constantly just to do what was the right thing for him to do. I mean he honestly didn't he have to do it. He could have been like his brother, having affairs with Americans and neglecting his duty to his Kingdom. But he didn't. He just carried on doing what he was supposed to do because it was his duty. That I think takes true guts and devotion. And I think that's what Lionel saw. Albert cared about the kingdom, and obviously, he knew what he should do for the kingdom, for the good of the kingdom, and had been doing his part faithfully.
The other scene is where Albert confronts his brother, after which his brother insults him (who says just about the cruelest thing he could have said to Albert) and Albert is left there, frozen in place because he couldn't calm himself down enough to gain the confidence to reply back without stammering (which was just horrible to see). This scene just sort of reveals that Albert is very aware of what a KING is supposed to do and he wants his brother to do just that. I think this gives us another insight to Albert's potential. Albert is more capable of being a king than his own brother, because he knows what he should do, and would be willing to do it whereas his brother wasn't willing to dump his girlfriend.
Ok, a summary now of all the good things. I think this movie is very powerful in that it just wonderfully captures Albert's emotions as well as make the audience, not only sympathesize with him, but also feel what he feels. People don't think about speech making as the most difficult part of being a king and I think the movie does an excellent job in showing us how and why speeches were difficult for Albert without making him seem childish or silly. The actors are also superb It did have Guy Pearce and Colin Firth! The former who I think is simply yummy and the latter I simply love). The movie also does a nice job of giving us background information (I had wiki-ed Albert before watching the movie so I knew about his brother and the American women he was with) that someone with no previous knowledge of what was going on would still be able to understand and follow the events of the movie (which is an excellent quality in my opinion because a movie that isolates its audience from the start simply because it doesn't tell them enough information about what's going on is not a good movie. I think that most WWII movies sort of fall into this category. Because, let's face it, not all people are well versed in WWII and there are a lot of details to it that its very easy to lose your audience due to simply confusion about what's going on), as well as understand why the actions of Albert's brother were a problem.
There isn't a section for its flaws because I didn't find any. I mean every movie has its flaws but I'm a generous critic and things that bother other people, don't bother me. So for me, there wasn't any downsides to it. (Except maybe the color spectrum? Why are all WWII movies devoid of color?)
Overall I liked this movie. It personally resonated with me because, I have a problem with speaking with people (but this isn't about me so I won't go into that). I recommend that you check it out if you can. You won't regret it.
I hope that I didn't bore anyone with too many details. Until next time
-Sebi
P.S. My next review is Megamind, I think. So watch out for that.
Click to viewI will start out by saying of how I came to learn of this wonderful movie and where I went to watch it. Yahoo and iTunes Movie Trailers are my very best friends when it comes to new movie trailers and such (although I will say that Yahoo does release some trailers before iTunes does) and I found it in Yahoo (since I make it a habit to check the Yahoo home page once a day for news). It looked interesting so I decided to check it out. Ok, maybe interesting is not the right word- but epic maybe? The trailer just really gave me a sense that it was going to be a powerful movie. I went with razzlie to watch it in the movie theatre in the mall close to my school, since she had always been curious how it would be like to watch a movie there. I will say that it has a very odd system of purchasing tickets (you have to purchase your tickets and choose the seats where you want to sit in), and I didn't really like that very much, since it limits where you want to sit (e.g. you can only sit in the available seats and if you buy them at the last minute, you'd probably get stuck at the very front where no one likes to sit). There was also a bunch of old people watching it, which always makes me feel a little strange. It makes me feel a little more cultured, I guess, but also old fashioned.
Anywho, enough of my movie experience. Onto the plot! If you watch the trailer it pretty much says it all. King George VI or Albert (er not yet King at the start of the film, but a Duke> I will refer to him as Albert in the review so that no one gets confused when I talk about his dad, King George V) had stammering problems. He seeks the help of a speech therapist in order to improve. His father dies and WWII breaks out. Albert suddenly finds himself becoming king. The movie ends with his speech announcing the involvement of the British Empire in WWII.
I will start out with the simple problems that Albert faces that the movie highlights, and by which I did it does an excellent job at.
1) his stammering problems. The movie makes it painfully clear that Albert has a horrible stammering problem. The start of the movie begins with one of speeches, which he fails to deliver with clarity. His wife is disappointed. But what I really liked about that scene is that you can tell by everyone's faces, and I do mean everyone, how horribly painful it was for everyone to hear. It was nerve-racking for Albert. His anxiousness before making the speech is palpable to everyone. His advisers try to calm him down ('You'll be fine') and his wife tries to support him. When he steps up to make the speech, he tries to calm his nerves, but he can't, and he carries on stammering the whole way. People in the audience turn around to see him and everyone is watching him. Once he makes it through his speech, some people turn away, because its just so obviously painful to both watch and hear. I think the movie (with this scene along with others) really does capture Albert's feelings as well as make us sympathesize with him. I mean, who doesn't get nervous making speeches or speaking in front of crowds? I also think the movie captures perfectly how this problem, this one problem, truly dominates Albert's life. You can tell that with his sessions with the speech therapists, as well with Lionel (Geoffrey Rush), how frustrating it is for him. He's just angry with himself for not being able to speak properly and it just infuriates him whenever he tries to get better. He just tries and tries and you can tell that he lost hope. He gets frustrates easily because....honestly, who wouldn't? This problem even goes back to how his family, mainly his father, treats him. You can tell that King George V doesn't take the problem as seriously as he should. He sort of sees it like 'hey, stop doing that. you're just being foolish and childish by doing all this. Why don't you get a grip on yourself and get past this?' I mean he doesn't say that but that's what I think that he's thinking. You can certainly tell how it effects his opinion of Albert. The scene of his deathbed reveals this most clearly.
2) Being royalty. I know that doesn't seem like much of a problem but royals don't have it easy either and what I love about this movie is that it does remind us that Kings and Queens are human, just like us, and they have problems too. One of the things that I should remind everyone is that a royal family is not like a normal family, and the movie does illustrate that. When King George V dies and Albert goes to Lionel's office to just talk, Lionel asks him if he was close to anyone in his family (eg his father or brother). Albert doesn't say no but he doesn't say yes either. I think that this most excellently demonstrates how royal families defer from normal families. Normal families live together, siblings live together and they grow to love one another or at least like each other in some way. Royal families don't live together like normal ones do (Think Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the Tudors, who didn't get along despite being half-sisters and having more in common with each other than with anyone else) and so don't develop as strong familial bonds that normal families do.
Another issue that the movie addresses is the difficulty of being a King. *spoiler here* Albert's own brother abdicates the throne because he wanted to marry an American instead of a noble *spoiler ends* And when Albert becomes King, you can tell that it makes him more distant from his own family. When he comes home after (I guess) signing the papers that made him King, he comes home to his daughters. He opens his arms, expecting a hug from his two daughter. And instead they just curtsy to him. That scene was just....really sad and it touched my heart. You could just really tell how hurt he was by it, but also coming to the realizations of who he is now. He's a king, and he can't really expect his life to be what it once was.
Now I'm just going to blabber on since I really can't think of a way to organize my thoughts and opinion and fit them into some sort of category or criteria.
I'll start with how effective the movie was with demonstrating how much Lionel helped Albert, not just with his speech, but with his life. One of the things that Lionel himself mentions that stammers are scared-cats in a way. They fear people, large crowds, and they even fear speaking, afraid of sounding foolish or being ridiculed. I think the movie does an excellent job demonstrating how much fear Albert had when even speaking, so afraid that he couldn't even defend himself when his brother insulted him (a scene that made tears come to my eyes. Oh, Guy Pearce, you are so cruel and yet so good looking *o*). How his own fear just muted him. And i think that Lionel (ok not think) helps him not only speak but gain confidence in himself. Lionel becomes his friend and sees his potential, that Albert could be a great king. I think the two scenes that most evidently demonstrates this potential is what King George V says about Albert before he dies and the scene when Albert confronts his brother about the indulgent life he's leading (both of which, I consider to be very sad scenes).
The first scene, King George V sort of says something about Albert's brother (played by Guy Pearce. Sexy devil). I don't remember exactly what he said but it was along the lines of something like 'you best get your act together because even your brother is able to do his job.' Although, I know it was meant to belittle both of his sons (although someone, I guess, could interpret it as maybe slight praise of Albert?) but I sort of got a glimpse of a bigger picture, the same glimpse that Lionel has about Albert. What I felt that it revealed that even though Albert had this problem, he was brave enough to face it head on because his duty called for it. I thought that it just proved how truly devoted Albert was to his duty to face his fears constantly just to do what was the right thing for him to do. I mean he honestly didn't he have to do it. He could have been like his brother, having affairs with Americans and neglecting his duty to his Kingdom. But he didn't. He just carried on doing what he was supposed to do because it was his duty. That I think takes true guts and devotion. And I think that's what Lionel saw. Albert cared about the kingdom, and obviously, he knew what he should do for the kingdom, for the good of the kingdom, and had been doing his part faithfully.
The other scene is where Albert confronts his brother, after which his brother insults him (who says just about the cruelest thing he could have said to Albert) and Albert is left there, frozen in place because he couldn't calm himself down enough to gain the confidence to reply back without stammering (which was just horrible to see). This scene just sort of reveals that Albert is very aware of what a KING is supposed to do and he wants his brother to do just that. I think this gives us another insight to Albert's potential. Albert is more capable of being a king than his own brother, because he knows what he should do, and would be willing to do it whereas his brother wasn't willing to dump his girlfriend.
Ok, a summary now of all the good things. I think this movie is very powerful in that it just wonderfully captures Albert's emotions as well as make the audience, not only sympathesize with him, but also feel what he feels. People don't think about speech making as the most difficult part of being a king and I think the movie does an excellent job in showing us how and why speeches were difficult for Albert without making him seem childish or silly. The actors are also superb It did have Guy Pearce and Colin Firth! The former who I think is simply yummy and the latter I simply love). The movie also does a nice job of giving us background information (I had wiki-ed Albert before watching the movie so I knew about his brother and the American women he was with) that someone with no previous knowledge of what was going on would still be able to understand and follow the events of the movie (which is an excellent quality in my opinion because a movie that isolates its audience from the start simply because it doesn't tell them enough information about what's going on is not a good movie. I think that most WWII movies sort of fall into this category. Because, let's face it, not all people are well versed in WWII and there are a lot of details to it that its very easy to lose your audience due to simply confusion about what's going on), as well as understand why the actions of Albert's brother were a problem.
There isn't a section for its flaws because I didn't find any. I mean every movie has its flaws but I'm a generous critic and things that bother other people, don't bother me. So for me, there wasn't any downsides to it. (Except maybe the color spectrum? Why are all WWII movies devoid of color?)
Overall I liked this movie. It personally resonated with me because, I have a problem with speaking with people (but this isn't about me so I won't go into that). I recommend that you check it out if you can. You won't regret it.
I hope that I didn't bore anyone with too many details. Until next time
-Sebi
P.S. My next review is Megamind, I think. So watch out for that.