The King’s Speech

Rab Nawaz

The King’s Speech, tipped to win big at this year’s Oscars, is a rich, absorb­ing British dra­ma chron­i­cling King George VI’s strug­gle to over­come a stut­ter­ing prob­lem that dom­i­nates his life and threat­ens his abil­i­ty to lead his peo­ple. The movie begins in 1925 with the then-Prince Albert (Col­in Firth) – father of the present Queen Eliz­a­beth– try­ing to give his first pub­lic speech. Over­come by his speech imped­i­ment, his pained paus­es fill the sta­di­um. His embar­rass­ment is acute­ly felt by his wife (superbly played by Hele­na Bon­ham Carter) who forces him to seek a cure through Lionel Logue (Geof­frey Rush), an eccen­tric speech ther­a­pist.

Unfold­ing dur­ing the Great Depres­sion, the sto­ry traces Prince Albert’s ses­sions with Logue against the back­drop of a roy­al dra­ma, where his broth­er Edward VIII abdi­cates the throne to mar­ry an Amer­i­can divorcee. Sud­den­ly Albert, the stam­mer­ing younger broth­er who is con­tent to live in the shad­ows, has become King, with all the pub­lic duties that accom­pa­ny the posi­tion. With World War II loom­ing, the need for the King to speak flu­ent­ly and moti­vate his peo­ple becomes cru­cial.

Watch­ing Firth stam­mer his way through a speech, one can phys­i­cal­ly feel the ten­sion and dis­com­fort that the King must have felt. Firth’s per­for­mance as the reserved, reluc­tant King is bril­liant and Rush, as the unortho­dox Lionel Logue, gives an equal­ly mem­o­rable per­for­mance. With great com­ic tim­ing and a well-writ­ten screen­play, The King’s Speech gives us a unique insight into the hard­ships that even roy­al­ty can face, and the inher­ent human­i­ty, and ulti­mate frailty, of those who are glam­or­ised by his­to­ry. Told through the touch­ing sto­ry of a friend­ship between social unequals, this is a must-watch movie for 2011.