Movie Review: The King’s Speech

LITTLE ROCK — I do not - at least not with any seriousness or hope of being correct - predict who or what will win Academy Awards. While I understand that people are interested, such guessing games don’t really have anything to do with the business of film criticism. These races can be fairly handicapped by people who never see the movies in question - they do a much better job of picking winners than I can.

Still, in this case I will make a prediction: Colin Firth will win the Best Actor Oscar for his work in The King’s Speech. I am almost as sure that Geoffrey Rush will win the Best Supporting Actor for his work in this film.

I say this because The King’s Speech is the kind of movie that wins Academy Awards. It seems to me an almost perfect example of what Manny Farber, in his seminal essay on “termite art,” called “white elephant art.” TheKing’s Speech fairly hums with the “gemlike inertia of an old, densely wrought European masterpiece.”

Still, some people like that sort of thing. I have no problem at all with formal excellence. (And even Farber later backed away from what some took as his “manifesto.”) The King’s Speech is entertaining, edifying and humanizing - it is an oldfashioned story of how a man (with the help of an unconventional Yoda) finds, heals himself and becomes the man he needs to be.

The man in this case is the king of the title, George VI of England (Firth), an upright naval officer who somewhat reluctantly assumed the throne in late 1936 upon the abdication of his brother Edward VIII (who couldn’t bear to deny himself the company of the American divorcee Wallis Simpson). Afflicted since childhood with a terrible stammer, George (or“Bertie,” as he’s known to family) is faced with the daunting task of having to communicate with his subjects directly, through radio - a challenge intensified by the specter of Nazism and 20th-century notions about royal obsolescence.

He seeks the help of an unconventional speech therapist, an Australian commoner named Lionel Logue (Rush),who insists that for his treatments to work the king must regard him as an equal.

What follows is an enjoyable, if predictable, series of meetings between the two men in which they initially clash, bond, clash again and finally become fast friends. The movie offers little in surprises (especially if you know a little about history), but the interplay between the characters - and the actors playing the characters - is never less than fascinating. Firth is brilliant and Rush matches him in a role that’s no less showy (Logue, it turns out, is a ham actor who delights in playing Shakespeare for his bemused young sons).

Equally enjoyable are Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Bertie’s wife and Queen-consort, who understands the need for and arranges the sessions with Logue, and Guy Pearce, who brings a louche slinkiness to his portrayal of Edward VIII. There are also brief, plummy parts for Derek Jacobi as the archbishop of Canterbury and Michael Gambon as King George V.

Lots of people will consider The King’s Speech the best movie of the year; for me it’s simply one of the best-made movies of the year. And the R rating that has been attached to it by the MPAA is simply silly - it’s for one scene in which Logue goads his patient into swearing loudly and repeatedly. Otherwise the movie’s totally safe for any bright 8-year-old.