511: The King's Speech

[Henry Faherty]:\nTwo eighteen. Let's get to The King's Speech, which is the first Tom Hooper film that I will be discussing. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnd I know that Tom Hooper has a couple films and miniseries that he did before this, but I figured since most of those have a fairly small following that this might be the best one to start with. If anyone is upset out there, let me know, and I can review those at a later time. But it felt \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nat least somewhat sensible to begin here. So The King's Speech came out in twenty ten, directed by Tom Hooper, stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Jacoby, Robert Portal, Guy Pearce. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnd the synopsis is the story of King George the sixth, his unexpected ascension to the throne of the British Empire in nineteen thirty six, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer. So Tom Hooper is someone who is not a huge director. He's had some successes, obviously, with this one being his biggest, I would say, considering it won best picture that year. He definitely has fallen off the map a little bit after doing cats, which we'll get to. I know that some people out there really dislike him. I don't totally get why. For me, I believe I saw Les Mis first and then this and then The Danish Girl and then Cats, and I went back and watched John Adams and a few of his other earlier works. While he definitely has some flaws to his filmmaking, he nevertheless is still a director with a very specific vision. As I feel like I can spot it immediately. Like, oh, yeah. That's a Tom Hooper shot. That's a Tom Hooper movie, even though he doesn't really have that many under his belt as of yet. As I talk about on the show a lot, having a specific style, making it your own is very refreshing in this day and age where so many things are safe. It's just, let's make it look like television. It needs to fit into this cinematic universe, whatever. At least, I can always enjoy more so than a lot of other filmmakers rewatching his films purely to see that individualistic expression. Just in case you're new to Tom Hooper or if you just want a refresh or whatever, some of his style trends that I have noticed over the years is he usually will have characters off center of the camera. So, like, in this, there's a lot of shots where Colin Firth is in the far left or the far right of the camera. And at first, it's sort of disorienting, but the more you watch it and the more consistent that that is, it really works for me. I love that look. And that \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nis not carried throughout all of his films, but especially in this and the Danish Girl, there's very frequent use of that. And at the same time, what I respect about him is he will typically adapt or reinvent his direction style for each film. So in this, there's a lot of stationary cameras, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThen you have movies like Les Mis, and the camera in that is more handheld. There's a lot of movement because, obviously, it's a big sweeping musical, so I think that's interesting in its own right as well. There's also a lot of Dutch angles. Probably, one of the more things he's known for is is wide angles and deep focus cinematography, so you really get a huge scope. Plus, one thing that I didn't even really think about till way late, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI think not until Danish Girl or maybe even Cats, he changes his focal length for his cameras very frequently, which, again, gives you that slightly off kilter, off balance, not so normal, but still fairly realistic look. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nBecause most of his movies are all, I guess, with the exception of Cats, are mostly grounded in a reality. And his performances as well are very, very strong across the board, which is easy to take for granted, I think, because just because you have a good cast doesn't mean that they're gonna give you their best. Well, talking about the King's Speech specifically, I've seen it, I'd say, at least four or five times over the years. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI overall, I think it's very solid. Should it have won best picture that year? No. In my opinion, I would have picked Black Swan, The Social Network, Inception. There are a lot of other great ones that year that were superior to this. Obviously, I get why it won. A lot of people \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\ncriticize it for feeling like Oscar bait, which, sure, in some ways it is. It's this very high class, fairly safe, inspiring period piece dealing with royalty, and it's got just enough drama in there to get the good performances. It's got some good humor to appeal to a wide audience because it made almost four hundred and fifty million against a budget of, I think, around fifteen. So it was a huge hit and very \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\ncritically praised. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nSo I fully can, you know, relate. I can sympathize. I can agree with the haters of the movie. However, while it does maintain some of those things, I find that with Tom Hooper's filmmaking, he seems to have the right intentions, and the heart of his films feel like they're in the right place. This movie is very entertaining. It looks amazing. I'd say Tom Hooper's visual style and cinematography overall, going back to what I was just saying, is one of the best looking in all of Hollywood. But, anyways, getting back around the music by Alexander Desplat, very good score. He's one of the best composers working today to me. The story of this, which I knew nothing about \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\ngoing in the first time, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\neven though it's dealing with someone in royalty and, yeah, his problems in life could be a lot worse than being where he is, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI feel like the main core problem of being forced to be in a position that he has to do one thing right, which is his speeches to the English people and to the world, and yet he can't. No matter how hard he tries and he feels humiliated, he feels like he's letting the country down, himself down, his family down, and he doesn't even wanna be anywhere in the public eye because he's so ashamed and he can't fix it. So then he gets in with this speech therapist. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnd Geoffrey Rush is amazing in this. Just wanna get that out there. Great actor overall, but very good in this. Probably what works the best is the relationship between Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. That partnership, that collaboration of Colin Firth, at first, not being at all interested sure. You can sort of see where it's going. Like, you can see, alright. He's probably gonna open up and, you know, get into it and evolve and get better, etcetera. But I always believed in his progression. Whether it's a writing strength, a directing strength, whatever, I totally bought how he growed over time and how that relationship became closer and closer. Because if that wasn't as strong as it was, the whole movie would fall apart for a variety of reasons. What's an emotional through line that I wasn't expecting at first and I had actually forgotten about is how his problem of the stammer or stutter stems from this childhood trauma, which I think nowadays with how open people are and how braver that they're feeling to open up about their past traumas, whether it's childhood or not, that becomes infinitely more relatable, at least it was for me on this last rewatch. Because there's no telling, and that's what's so horrible about, especially, childhood trauma is you really don't know how it's going to affect someone or you as the years progress. And with his father being very overbearing and him starting to stutter and him developing, I guess, you can just say anxiety, his knees would knock together, and his father made him wear braces. And so you see, like, oh, yeah. Like, I would probably develop whether it was a stammer or something else. Yeah. I would be traumatized by this, especially if you're being held to such a high standard being in British royalty and in the early twentieth century on top of that. Some other strong notes across the whole film, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nHelena Bonham Carter, who plays Colin Furth's wife, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nGuy Pearce, who plays the brother of Colin Firth, and yet Guy Pearce is seen as the disappointment because he's mainly just living life within royalty and not wanting to get into politics, into leadership. He has no real courage or ability or knowledge of how to do that, and the father dies. He has to step up at least \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nfor a brief moment. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThe vocal exercise montage when you see Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush shaking their jaws back and forth or jiggling, The cursing monologue is hilarious. I know that's a standout for a lot of people as being a favorite. The final sequence \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nwhen Colin Firth has to give this major speech for the country, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nthe editing I mean, the editing across the board, and that's another strength of Tom Hooper. His editing is so clean and fluid. I'm never losing track of the story. I'm always maintaining focus. But the buildup to that speech and going in through the different long hallways and getting the radio room set up, the music, that classical piece. It's a very captivating, satisfying end, which you know it's gonna happen. You know, even if you don't know the story, most would think, I would say, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nthis is gonna go well this time. He's had all these pitfalls. He's gonna nail it this time, and he does. But I was happy as a viewer to see him achieve that. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nOne note, offbeat note, I'm someone who I mean, I haven't always stuttered. I haven't had any issues like \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nKing George did, but even in my adult life, more so, honestly, in my adult life, I do stutter sometimes, maybe more so than others do. At least that's how I notice it. That's why I love podcasting because I can control the editing. It's not radio. I usually have to stop this recording every thirty seconds to a minute because I'm either stuttering or messing up. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nSo not having seen this in many years, that had a bit of a new impact on me that I was not expecting. Overall, I think it's one of those fairly timeless films that anyone could really get into to a certain degree. I know not everyone loves movies about British royalty and period pieces. I do. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nSo that one is a heavy, heavy four out of five. \n\n