The King's Speech

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that The King's Speech is the best movie I've seen all year. The fact that it's the only movie I've seen this year is not significant; I think it's possibly the best movie of last year too. It's the only movie - other than True Grit - that I've seen in a while that I actually thought I'd like to see again.

While it's sort of a buddy movie, it's also a character study, and it's about someone that I knew very little about; I think I actually knew more about the King George's brother (who abdicated) than I did about him. This was a man who ruled Britain during World War II; but who was over-shadowed by the many stronger characters of the time; like Churchill and Hitler.

Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are great as the King and his speech therapist, but I especially enjoyed Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the King's wife. She gives the character tremendous energy and humor, without overshadowing the other players.

There's a 20 minute making-of video that's been released that has interviews with the Director, Writer and Actors. Particularly notable is that they got hold of the notebooks of Lionel Logue (the Geoffrey Rush character) the day pre-production started!


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