Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Colin Firth
Geoffrey Rush
Helena Bonham Carter
Guy Pearce
Directed By:
Tom Hooper
The viewing of The King's Speech concludes my run of the 2010 Best Movie Oscar nominees. It would be common usage to save the best for last, but here is not the case. I couldn't bring myself to watch the ultimate winner of 2010's Oscar ceremony because I couldn't find it any appeal. Like every part of the commonwealth, except for Britain, Canada doesn't care much about monarchy. There are some province where it's cool to love the queen, but ask most Canadians if they know they still technically are under the monarchy and they will say no. It's an institution that lost most of its relevance and watching a two hours feature about a king having a freakin' SPEECH IMPETIMENT filled me with a surprising amount of existential dread.
Because yeah, King George VI (Firth) stammered. Big deal, I know. But if I try to suspend my disbelief and my common sense for a second, stammering is a big problem when you have responsibility of making regular speeches on national broadcasts. You don't look like much of a leader to your people if you keep bumping every thre words. So when he's still Albert, the Duke Of York, he teams up with eccentric speech therapist Lionel Logue (Rush), because the conventional methods failed him. Logue has his opinions on the origins of a stammer and his very specific methods, which Albert/George doesn't want to hear about. But force is to admit, his methods work. During their first appointment, Logue recorded his highness speak with music over his ears so he couldn't hear himself. And guess what? It was an emotional problem all along. And emotions start pouring when Albert is named King of England after his brother abdicated to go marry some broad in Baltimore.
I wanted to like The King's Speech. I wanted to defend the Academy for this choice. I wanted to find it a little contrived and straightforward, but very good. But I didn't. The most infuriating thing I found about The King's Speech is that it doesn't seem to make any efforts. Not unlike The Departed, it's a movie built with an "Oscarized Aesthetic", if I can borrow the term. There is no soul, no desire to tell something visceral, like in Black Swan or Winter's Bone. It's a movie that drifts from one scene to another without and narrative logic, except for chronology. And it's too bad, because Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush give great performances. I have always been partial to Rush in the past and he keeps living up to his reputation of safe investment for directors. The man gets the job done. Firth also deserved his Oscar for best lead male performance. He was enjoyable, but maybe a little too slapstick to create a real emotional involvement with the viewers. I haven't seen Biutiful but he was ahead of all the other nominees.
It's sad that it's impossible to talk about The King's Speech without bringing up its controversial Oscars triumph, but it's sadly the most interesting aspect to this movie there is. It came in a year where many renowned directors tried real hard on risky project and weaved itself on top because it played safe. The structure is safe, predictable and pinnacles in a cute-but-underwhelming finale. The aesthetic has a few clever shots (especially the steadicam shots, very well engineered), but there are no surprises, no attempt to use cinema to enhance the story told. And it's weird to make such a negative review because it's not bad. It's not a stupid, insidious or deceitful movie. It's just flavorless. Thing of The King's Speech being like a loaf of brown bread, while Black Swan is a plateful of exquisite sushi. By the second hours, I was playing some Tiny Wings games on my iPhone because my poor mind was begging for entertainment. It might appeal to some, but I thought it was a well-designed bore.
SCORE: 71%
