The King's Speech

This is the story of King George of Britain, who stammered all his life. When his brother Edward VIII abdicated the throne so that he could marry twice divorced Wallis Simpson, Bertie (King George) becomes King. This was a difficult period in World History as WWII is declared, and Bertie must unite his people with courage and strength. Difficult to do when you stammer... Queen Elizabeth refers him to Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue and the most incredible of relationships begin.

Directed by Tom Hooper (who I hadn't heard of before), this movie is both funny, heartbreaking and really stressful at the same time. It is a fantastic story, beautifully filmed and wonderfully cast.

Colin Firth is just so so so good in this role, I can't begin to say how great his performance was. Who knew? I don't generally like period films, and the only thing I'd really seen Colin Firth in was Bridget Jones. I like him, but to me I kinda took him only a little bit more seriously than Hugh Grant. But Colin Firth was in one of my favorite movies of the last couple of years 'A Single Man' with Julianne Moore, and this year 'The King's Speech'. How wrong I was. He was simply brilliant.

Geoffrey Rush was also outstanding as Lionel. And Helena Bonham Carter was so endearing as Elizabeth. She's done so many crazy characters lately (the red queen in Alice, Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter, Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd), it was really good to see her play it straight in this role. I think she should do more of these films. She is beautiful, and it's nice to see her face on screen.

Guy Pearce as Edward also does a good job. I have trouble taking him seriously though because to me, he will always be Mike from Neighbours.

I was in tears for a large part of this movie, I don't really know why... well that's not true. I do know why. The story was so moving, Colin Firth was so vulnerable and you could see how much courage it must have taken this King (the real one) to work past this crippling stammer. It was such a great story, I loved every single second that I sat in that cinema. I was really moved by this film, I will most definitely be seeing this again...
5/5