Worth every star available for the pace, acting, script, humour and attention to detail re historical context. - Plus the music............Thoroughly enjoyable: worth seeing again!

Worth every star available for the pace, acting, script, humour and attention to detail re historical context. - Plus the music............Thoroughly enjoyable: worth seeing again!

Worth every star available for the pace, acting, script, humour and attention to detail re historical context. - Plus the music............Thoroughly enjoyable: worth seeing again!

This is good movie, but a great movie? I thought A Single Man was much better. I suppose it may depend on whether you are comfortable with a movie that invites you to have sympathy for members of the royal family - I am not particularly interested in the pampered lives of the royals, I'm afraid. Colin Firth and Helena Bonham-Carter in particular do deliver fine performances, but in the end I just didn't care that much - more like watching a good documentary than a drama with engaging characters, except for Geoffrey Rush's character, again a fine performance, and the real hero of the movie. In fact, the movie could be seen as a plea for republicanism - a plea to end this nonsensical system where a rather bland, cold and uninspiring family continue to hold prerogative powers simply by an accident of birth.

It is just a wonderfully heartwarming story which happens to be based on truth even if one can only summise the events privately which accompanied them. The fact that Logue (speech 'therapist') kept detailed notes of his sessions, allows us a glimpse of the subject matter at first hand.
The acting is first rate throughout and although the subject matter seems on paper to be rather dry, this film gives you a real sense of the despair George vi felt when the weight of responsibility fell to him. Having watched this and knowing a little of the history around it, I can only say thank goodness Edward viii abdicated.
I came away with a real sense of the stuffiness of doing one's duty and how stifling the Royal Family can be. It made me think of our present monarch and family in a new light and I also had a feeling of fate that brought George and Lionel together at the moment when they both needed each other the most. In all our lives there are often people to whom we are indebted for just sharing our journey with us. The King had the guts to go along with the unconventionality and Logue had the guts to stick to his guns and do what he knew.
Can't wait to see it again.

Five stars, no question!

Five stars, no question!

I was lucky to catch the king's speech in Toronto at tiff and was blown away by the acting, directing and writing. It's a wonderful film that deserves all the hype it's getting!