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!!!