Movie Review: The King's Speech

[caitri]

So much to love about this film: well written, well acted. It functions really well as a series of character studies of historical figures. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush glowed onscreen, and every scene without one of them in it (fortunately, very few) always seemed the poorer for it. I wonder if it was adapted from a play--it seemed like a lot of it would have worked much better if so. There were also some moments of direction that were annoying and uncalled for--for instance, a big musical background to one of Firth's scenes was completely unneeded and was actually distracting: we didn't need that upswell to know this was a Big Emotional Moment because we have Colin Fucking Firth emoting! I swear that man can do acting with his eyeballs that other people can't do with their whole bodies. (And attention, ladies, you need to see this film if for no other reason than to see Colin Firth in a kilt. That is all.)

There were lots of British biggies in minor scenes--Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon amongst many others--that were great. And they did quite a bit of filming on location. There's an adorable moment with Rush as the Australian Logue gleefully skipping about Westminster Abbey being all "I'm! Walking! On! Handel! And! Dickens!"

I so so recommend seeing this film. We went to see True Grit last week and it was such a cold nonentity and this film was its complete opposite in so many ways. Go go go!!!

Comments

[kayim.livejournal.com]

I think we're going to see this next week or something. I'm looking forward to it, especially as I love love love Guy Pearce. I have high hopes for it!

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Head's up, though, Guy Pearce is in the film for a very smallportion of the film--maybe ten minutes altogether. It really is the Colin & Geoff show for the most part.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Cool--based on previews and GEOFFREY RUSH!!!! we were planning to see this film anyway, but good to get a good review from someone I trust.

Also: NOT seeing TG. Read the book, saw John Wayne in the original, and SO not seeing it (I have mildly enjoyed some of the Coen brothers but well, meh, don't trust them or fangirl them at all, and the previews looked bleh).

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, TG was just meh. Matt Damon was the best thing about it, and he was in comparatively little of it. I think Josh Brolin's performance would have been noteworthy if he'd had more than five fucking minutes. But I felt nothing for the stars--nothing.

[morfin.livejournal.com]

Speech still hasn't come to College Stagnation yet :( It was not a play. What did happen is that in preproduction, the descendant of Geoffrey Rush's character found the man's diaries and notes, and they rewrote the screenplay to use a lot of his actual recorded dialogue.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Oh cool!! I wonder if they'll publish any of that--it would be very interesting, I think.

[tn-tiger.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Thanks for the review! I can't always find someone to go with me to a movie I'm interested in, so I signed up for a local movie meetup, and will be seeing "The King's Speech" with them next weekend, knock on wood.

And thanks for the heads-up on True Grit, too--I was mildly curious, but it looked like it might be skippable. The Coen bros are only batting about .500 with me.