The King's Speech in The King's Road

Well, Saturday's plan went smoothly. What was fun part way through was seeing a genuinely enjoyable film which created much positive audience reaction and then, at the end, as the titles rolled, hearing loud spontaneous applause from the audience.

We'd visited the Chelsea Cinema in the King's Road. It's the one that quite often shows European films and looks quite unlike most multiplexes, with its very wide seating area, convenient bar and somewhat 1970's styling.

The film we'd been watching was "The King's Speech" - about the yet to be King George VI breaking past his speech impediment in the stormy times that led to him becoming King.

The film opens showing Bertie (Colin Firth) struggling and stuttering to make a radio broadcast and being criticised for it by his father King George V. By contrast, his highly self-confident older brother David (Guy Pearce) seemed to have a social world at his fingertips.

The story showed the attempts of Bertie to break past his stutter, led by the efforts of his wife (Helena Bonham-Carter), who introduced him to the non-nonsense and somewhat eccentric instruction of Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). There's some great Royalty meets Commoner scenes which created much laughter in the cinema.

Meanwhile those partying fingertips of David were never far from Baltimore socialite Wallace Simpson, although its not entirely clear that she was only within one man's grasp.

History tells of the death of George V, which made David the new King Edward VIII. He didn't make it to be crowned though, staying as monarch for less than a year, because of his wish to marry Wallace Simpson which created the basis for his abdication.

The reluctant Bertie was instead to be crowned as the new King. Albert couldn't be the name - it sounded too Germanic, so George VI was chosen to create continuity with his father. Luckily most of the Royals have plenty of spare names.

The story continues with the lead up to the Coronation and the see-sawing improvements of the to-be King's speech in the time when much of Europe was preparing for World War II.

I enjoyed a well-told and engaging story, with much delicate humour as well as a sense of the dark times ahead as George VI prepared for a reign which would run the course of the second world war.

movie title is a winner

I missed most of the speeches from the Oscars, and my hopes were pinned on this film, which seems to have somehow been at number 11 on the various lists of ten.

I'm sure that the sequel will do better so long as they remember not to include any card games and laughter. Thanks to britanick for this little gem.

"Catchphrase"
"Famous quote" : furious woman.
"Metaphor"

"naive yet inspiring statement as music gets hopeful"

enjoyed State of Play before Chianti refuel

I enjoyed watching 'State of Play'. A good and mainly tightly scripted conspiracy thriller about newspapers, relationships, politics, police against morality questions around friendship, self serving ends and ways to derive 'truth'.

There's some structural conventions, like in a good blues song, to make it easy to absorb - a short opening scene during which someone is eliminated from the plot. Helicopters, aerial swoops around skylines, CIA Langley, clickety clackety noises and a special synthesizer sound reserved for the prowling man with the big gun.

A scruffy metropolitan Saab-driving reporter (Russell Crowe) whom all of the cops know, eye-candy cub-reporter accomplice (Rachel McAdams) who writes the 'Capitol Hill' blogs for the paper(chalk cheese etc). Tough Brit scene-stealer editor trying to sell copy to stop the newly acquired paper from toppling (Helen Mirren). An entourage of only semi-named cops who are mostly a step behind the wily reporter's investigation centred on his ex room-buddy senator (Ben Affleck with a cheesy Philadelphia accent).

Snappily paced, with a few longer scenes to give time to breathe a little. Some settings confused my sense of the 2009 period - I found myself checking a car date sticker in one scene to be sure. The cluttered newsrooms full of paper were for me more evocative of 70s movies than a 2009 paperless workplace, but hey, maybe the press still do it the old way.

With references to Watergate Building (been there!) whizzing around Washington (ditto) and Georgetown (yup), there was a combination of homage to other reporting stories and perhaps just things to make it easy to fix the location for a global audience.

By random co-incidence I'd also watched 'Body of Lies' a few days ago, with Crowe playing against Leonardo di Caprio (another good popcorn film) and it was interesting to see the way Crowe can change his whole appearance and demeanour for the different roles. Less so with Affleck, where I thought it more a good casting choice for him as the neat but flawed senator.

And back to the blues song formula, one hopes in a film like this that certain things will happen; the genre needs the underground car park scene, helicopters, convergence of the unconnected, the important twist when you think you know what has happened. Its all there.

BUT. I gather this was adapted from a BBC screenplay produced some years ago. I'm wondering in hindsight if there's still enough of the original plot arc there to have limited some of the choices from what a modern rebuild could do? I'm guessing it was a mini-series, which could explain why I thought there was an end in sight around 2/3 of the way through (end of episode?).

Also the blog/new media savvy gal with the faux 1940's columnist name Della Frye, could have driven more into the plot. Don't just give Crowe a Blackberry, do something more interesting with the social media. Instead, Crowe ends up instructing McAdams and Affleck on spin management. A modernist twist here could have been more fun.

That's me being a tad over critical though; was this a film to watch before drifting along to an Italian restaurant for some good conversation over a glass of wine?

Will I watch it again when its a DVD or on Sky?

For sure.