The King's Speech

It's seemed rather fitting that I finally get around to starting this blog with Tom Hooper's "The King's Speech". I've had the opportunity to to see this in previews not once but four times and unfortunately I've had miss all four screenings.

It was worth the wait.

I was starting to dread seeing this film - it couldn't live up to the hype I'd read in the press, heard from friends and built up in my own mind. In the cinema I was getting even more apprehensive as the rest of cinema audience had each been given a list of my personal cinema bug bears and encouraged to partake in all of them. On either side of me couples who alternately swapped saliva and consumed an eight course meal. Behind me a couple who had brought a tin of Quality Street and while one rustled their sweet wrappers the other tried and failed to muffle the sound of the tin opening. I'm not sure they actually managed to eat any of the sweets just rustle wrappers and burp that lid. And there was something up with the projection; usually I'd complain but . . . It's that good.

Based on on the friendship between King George VI and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue. It ticks all the boxes required of a historical drama, it looks gorgeous, filled with exquisite actors giving polished performance and it gives you a warm sepia glow in your heart. But 'The King's Speech" also has laughs, lots of them and dialogue witting enough to make you want to co-op it for yourself. Honestly, at points I was starting to figure out which friends I could use the lines on with out them realizing I'd outright nicked them. Of course, most of them only work if you're Royal.

And it does look beautiful, and quite often I'll forgive a film a lot because it looks pretty. So when I get distracted from my observations on the wallpaper because there's an actor in the way then I know they're doing a good job. I know everyone is saying that Colin Firth was brilliant, and don't get me wrong he is outstanding, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the performance given by Helena Bonham Carter. As the Duchess of York, who before her marriage was considered a commoner, she represents the nation and duty. Years of playing over the top characters give her a repressed amusement and tragedy that strip away years of tabloid veneer and made me re-examine that old caricature The Queen Mother. She really deservers her Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Golden Globes.