Well, finally.
I had to get around to seeing 2010′s official Best Picture eventually, and it happened this past Sunday. It’s a really good movie, obviously. Was it the best of last year? Not sure. Many people thought so. As much as I admit that I liked The King’s Speech, it still wouldn’t be my single favorite for 2010, and I’m not sure it even would have cracked my top ten. (Top twenty for sure.) It’s a personal preference thing. No offense to anyone.
You have to give it credit, though: For a movie that so easily could have been generically highbrow and stuffy, soft-focus and PBS-on-Sunday-evening sleepy, it sure wasn’t that. It’s a much more visually interesting and energetic movie than it might have been. Director Tom Hooper brings an appealing, fish-eyed lens approach to a script by David Seidler that is certainly excellent, but could just as easily have been retrofitted to be a stage play. I was actually surprised by the relatively small scale of the movie — for all the enormity of the world events of the time, most of the big setpieces of the movie happen in enclosed spaces between two characters. This movie uses dialogue like other movies use action scenes.
It’s to the credit of David Seidler’s work (and that of the direction and the actors) that such static scenes are so engaging and/or gripping.
Here are a few other random observations that occurred to me during The King’s Speech:
1. Geoffrey Rush’s character is a familiar archetype from inspirational crowd-pleasers throughout the years: the teacher with unconventional methods whose brave approach is frowned upon by the establishment but proves fruitful through his work with a star pupil. What is maybe most interesting about this character is what is (perhaps strangely) least remarked upon throughout the movie – culturally speaking, his approach truly is unconventional, even dangerous. Right from the start, he’s very bold and forward with a man who will eventually be a monarch. He’s an immigrant from Australia whose acting career is unsuccessful. Where does he get the confidence to be so commanding with the duke? We see that he has a happy home life, and he thinks well of his accomplishments, but really, we only get that one audition scene – otherwise, Geoffrey Rush is almost entirely in scenes with Colin Firth’s Prince Albert/King George, and he’s almost always insisting on calling him “Bertie”. Dude’s got rocks on him.
2. That understanding of history doesn’t necessarily mean critical and commercial success. Why did The King’s Speech succeed so much where so many similar movies don’t register as strongly? And generally speaking, what is up with America’s fascination with British royals? It’s something I’ve never quite understood. Subtract for a moment the fact that The King’s Speech is clearly a good story, and you still have US and People magazines dedicating multiple covers to Kate Middleton. It strikes me as ironic that a couple hundred years back, we split from the monarchy, and now so many people still feel so nostalgic for it. That’s a flippant piece of sarcasm, but there’s truth in it. What does it mean, in 2010 (and now 2011) specifically, that Americans are consumed with British royalty the same way they are consumed with our own country’s figurehead celebrities? And what does it mean that Americans selected such a distinctly British film as their single best of the year? (That’s a rhetorical question for y’all. I can’t answer it.)
3. For all the acclaim, here’s what’s been under-appreciated about this movie: Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce, in small roles. Also, Alexandre Desplat’s simple, effective score.
4. By my reckoning, this is the second of two great films from 2010 that introduced their quirky, unconventional second-to-the-lead character while he’s off-camera, in the bathroom. When Helena Bonham Carter first visits his chambers, Geoffrey Rush’s Lionel Logue is on the can. (Or: “In the loo!”) In True Grit, when Mattie Ross first meets Jeff Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn, he’s similarly indisposed, and their first conversation takes place through the outhouse door. (It would take an idiot like me to notice a non-issue like that.)
5. Between that bathroom talk and all the stuttering, this just plain has to be Howard Stern’s favorite movie ever, right?
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And now, a quick bonus lightning round of This Person Looks Like That Person!
