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The King's Speech (2010)

Director: Tom Hooper

Time Out rating

Average user rating

49 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

As attention-grabbing plotlines go, it’s hardly a world-beater: buttoned-down British royal suffers speech impediment and hires unconventional Aussie quack to conquer his fear of public oratory. So it’s thanks to the best efforts of writer David Seidler, director Tom Hooper and, especially, leads Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush that ‘The King’s Speech’ isn’t just an enlightening period drama, but a very entertaining, heartfelt and surprisingly funny crowd-pleaser with a glint of Oscar gold in its eye.

This is a film of small, precise, perfectly judged moments: while the historical backdrop could easily have made for epic overstatement and hand-wringing melodrama, Seidler and Hooper’s decision to focus their attention on the characters and on their relationships and insecurities, makes ‘The King’s Speech’ feel intimate and wholly convincing. And in structuring the plot like a sports movie, with Firth’s George VI as the plucky outsider thrust unwillingly into the ring and Rush’s Lionel Logue as the maverick coach who talks him up off the ropes, the filmmakers press all the uplifting emotional buttons which audiences respond to.

This is, at heart, an actor’s movie, and both Firth and Rush are on top form. Their scenes together, as Logue breaks the King down, trying to unearth the scared boy inside the defensive, blustering aristocrat, are a joy to behold, packed with little moments of pure performance and sly, unexpected wit.

For all its period trappings and occasionally heavy-handed Freudian psychodrama, ‘The King’s Speech’ always comes back to the unlikely friendship between two superbly sketched, immaculately played characters. By the rousing wartime finale, it’ll be a staunch, hard-hearted republican who doesn’t feel the urge to yell, ‘God save the King!’

Author: Tom Huddleston

Time Out London issue 2107, Jan 6-12 2011

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User reviews of this film

That isinght solves the p said...

Posted on Jan 21 2012 11:24 That isinght solves the problem. Thanks!

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Lisa said...

Posted on May 25 2011 15:33 Trash

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chris jackson said...

Posted on May 23 2011 14:47 wonderful

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Das Ante Royale said...

Posted on May 15 2011 21:09 Rubbish

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Di said...

Posted on Apr 07 2011 13:52 A-M-A-Z-I-N-G..Film..Brilliant in all fields... Ten.... Stars

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red said...

Posted on Mar 12 2011 13:40 poor little king man and his stammer. how jolly hard his life was. and all my grandad had to put up with was being bombed and shot at at the age of eighteen. my heart bleeds. i mean having to talk in public when your entire life is paid for by the state your trying to sell off too the nazis. history redrawn to favour the privilidged and ripped from the hands of the people that did the dirty work. class war.

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funkoxen said...

Posted on Mar 12 2011 13:31 i feel compelled to reply to vic as i couldnt agree with his sentiment more or his judgement of this film less. less LION IN WINTER and more MRS BROWN or LOVE ACTUALY played straight. And as for all about eve sunset boulevard and the billy wilder films with their aserbic noirish machine gun dialouge this film doesnt deserve to be mentioned in the same breath and i actaualy think inception has, with its plots within plots and scams and counter scams has a lot more in common with them than this. Ive raised my reveiw to a two star as its true id take it over Avatar (a real headbanger) and i know it annoys people to see a one star reveiw when theyve enjoyed something. im only being negative because the film is so inoffensive, neatly made, formulaicly written, two decent performances, its also dull, conservative and trite and you know how it ends from the beggining. YOU HAVE SEEN THIS FILM BEFORE, when it had ray charles in was it, or johnny cash? biopics like this are all the same.

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TNT said...

Posted on Mar 12 2011 09:24 this film is one of the best I've ever seen, the acting was first rate, and anyone not liking it does not understand the fear that the king went through...I remember him struggling with his speech, but being very young did not understand but now I do...wonderful acting..the emotions are all there. I really felt for him.

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Vic said...

Posted on Mar 05 2011 08:45 Finally - a great film in the tradition of the lost art of superb writing (not to mention wonderful acting). I actually fell asleep in AVATAR and INCEPTION for quite some time even though the sound was close to deafening. I'm sure I didn't miss anything except a video show that became an incredible bore after five minutes. Give me films like THE KING'S SPEECH, THE LION IN WINTER, ALL ABOUT EVE, and just about anything by Billy Wilder. Hopefully Hollywood will produce entertainment in the future for
an audience that misses the true meaning of "talkies". The word is the thing.

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funkoxen said...

Posted on Feb 27 2011 23:46 how can this film possibly be getting the praise and the awards in the same year as inception. Same old rubbish, fluffy royals, a little disability, even a completly hypocritical hint of the holocaust = cynical english oscar gold. Its a made for tv movie self inflated. Disney world uk all chinless aristos and formidable dames. Wait two months youll be able to get this and two more " modern british classics" for a fiver. sorry to be harsh.

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JOHN Timlin said...

Posted on Feb 25 2011 10:31 I thought it was a great film, but after seeing 'The real Kings Speech' on the TV, I wondered what had happened to the studio hairdresserThe real. King George has a neat Eton crop with a high parting rather than vavy thick locks

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Gill B said...

Posted on Feb 20 2011 09:32 Fantastic. Best film I have seen in a long long time. Totally recommend it.

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matty said...

Posted on Feb 19 2011 10:01 Based on wonderful reviews, off I went to see this movie. So boring. The acting is truly good otherwise that movie and its ludicrous little plot would probably have gone straight to DVD. Like Sam I kept thinking of the Emperor's new clothes. Is it the impeding wedding that makes us so gaga over the Royals and their "problems" again. "My nanny used to pinch me" said Colin Firth. Anybody else would have had the audience rolling in the aisles.

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ARCHGATE said...

Posted on Feb 14 2011 18:38 Geoffrey Rush: Fantastic

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Sam said...

Posted on Feb 11 2011 16:11 The King's New Clothes - more like. I feel about this film a bit like the way the late Frank Grimes (Grimesy to his friends) felt about Homer Simpson. Didn't anybody else find it annoying? Its cliched, predictable and manipulative and preposterous - the Nazis were defeated because the king got rid of his stammer!

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