Dir. Tom Hooper, UK/Australia, 2010, 118 mins
Cast: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter
Review by Carol Allen
The title of this film is a double entendre, dealing as it does with the problem that plagued George VI, father of the present Queen, throughout his life. Bertie, as he was known to his family, was the painfully shy younger brother of Edward VIII, who reluctantly became king, when his elder brother abdicated. From boyhood he had suffered from a crippling stammer, which made speaking in public a nightmare – something we are introduced to right at the beginning of the film, when Bertie (Firth), paralysed with fear, undergoes the humiliating experience of attempting to give the closing speech at the Empire Exhibition in Wembley Stadium in 1925 via the new medium of radio and is unable to get more than a couple of words out.
At the centre of the film is the relationship between Bertie and the forthright Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who helps him overcome if not totally cure his stammer. While no lookalike for the late king, Colin Firth convinces in his manner, which is a mixture of high born arrogance and total internal lack of self confidence, making us empathise with his situation, while Rush brings a blunt antipodean energy to the role of Logue, whose unorthodox treatments embrace early recording techniques to get Bertie to record his voice while listening to loud music on headphones, getting his patient to bellow four letter words at the top of his voice and attempting with difficulty in the face of Bertie’s entrenched sense of protocol and privacy to adopt a holistic approach and get at the childhood which caused the stammer. And at a period when doctors were advising Bertie to smoke as being relaxing for the larynx and therefore good for his stammer, Lionel, obviously ahead of his time, will have no truck with this. His consulting room is firmly a smoke free zone! There is also a likeable performance from Helena Bonham Carter as Bertie’s strongly supportive and practical wife Elisabeth.
The film creates with considerable accuracy the social restrictions of a time (from the mid twenties up to the beginning of the second world war), when the monarch and his family lived in a different, privileged but very restricted world apart from his subjects, where certain “standards” were expected and rigidly adhered to – in total contrast for example to the recent matey press headlines about the engagement of William and Kate, which would have been unthinkable at the time. It’s a social attitude which is epitomized by the very posh spoken BBC announcer, who introduces the royal broadcasts while wearing a dinner jacket. As well as the three main characters, there are a number of interesting supporting performances including Michael Gambon as Bertie’s overbearing father George V, Claire Bloom as Queen Mary and Guy Pearce, who effectively captures the selfish charm of Bertie’s adored elder brother David (Edward VIII). Plus a slightly bizarre portrayal of Winston Churchill from Timothy Spall.
