A STUTTERER REVIEWS "THE KING'S SPEECH"

Torey Lightcap at The Lead links to the review of "A King's Speech" by the L.A. Times movie critic, Charles McNulty, who also happens to stutter.

Public speaking consistently ranks as one of life's most stressful events, up there with divorce, bereavement and home foreclosure. But there's a look of paralytic terror on the face of the protagonist of "The King's Speech" that goes beyond any working definition of stage fright. As the man who will one day become King George VI prepares to deliver a few ceremonial remarks, his doomed countenance suggests not so much a judgmental audience as a firing squad.

Colin Firth, who portrays "Bertie," the second-born, stammering son of Great Britain's King George V, captures the adrenaline-racing horror of a person obliged to speak when speech itself is an uncertain thing. As someone who has stuttered since childhood, I recognize his symptoms only too well — the blood-drained complexion, the collapsing gait, the passive acceptance of death in the eyes.

Since I have terrible stage fright without a stutter, I can't even imagine what it would be like to face a group of people focused on my words in fear that the words would not come out.

But "The King's Speech" is more than just a movie about stuttering. It dramatizes the difficulty of self-acceptance, the painful ownership of the life you have rather than the one you assumed you'd get. The film is also about finding one's voice, which I like to think of as a style of being that embraces the unique history you've been handed. Finally, it's about the possibility of incremental change, or, as a wise speech therapist once put it to me, "learning to stutter more easily," an approach that has had far more widespread application than I could have ever realized at the time.

Ah yes. The movie is profound in ways that had not yet surfaced in my conscious mind. What a splendid review of a splendid movie! Please read it all.

Thanks to Torey also for the link to the video of the actual speech by King George VI, which you may hear in the video below.




H.M. King George VI, broadcast speech to the British Empire from Buckingham Palace on September 3rd, 1939...at the outbreak of WW2.

THE KING'S SPEECH - SUPERB

Since the movie, "The King's Speech", is not showing at the movie theater nearby in Houma, La., I decided to see the film while I was in New Orleans on Monday. After I dropped off my grandchildren from Thibodaux to visit their aunt and cousins in New Orleans, I headed for the theater. The movie is superb, intelligent, adult (NOT meaning sexually explicit!) entertainment. The actors, the sets, the witty script, everything about the movie is just right. Before seeing the movie, I read only one review in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and that one was all I needed to get me there. I left the theater with great satisfaction at the close of nearly two hours, thinking that my time was very well spent.

Have a look at the cast:

Colin Firth - King George VI

Helena Bonham Carter - Queen Elizabeth

Guy Pearce - King Edward VIII (later, The Duke of Windsor)

Michael Gambon - King George V

Geoffrey Rush - Lionel Logue

Timothy Spall - Winston Churchill

Jennifer Ehle - Myrtle Logue

Derek Jacobi - Cosmo Gordon Lang (Archbishop of Canterbury)

Anthony Andrews - Stanley Baldwin

Eve Best - Wallis Simpson

Freya Wilson - Princess Elizabeth

Ramona Marquez - Princess Margaret

Colin Firth performed the best I've ever seen him in a film. He didn't play George VI, he was George VI. Helena Bonham Carter performed in her usual excellent style as Bertie's (as he was known in the family) wife Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth, and for many years after her husband's death, known and loved as the Queen Mum.

Since Bertie stutters, public appearances are painful for him and for those who listen to him speak. Enter Geoffrey Rush, in a brilliant performance as Lionel Logue, an Australian speech coach, and the story takes off with the focus on the relationship between the two men, as Logue puts Bertie through his paces to rid him of his stutter.

As war looms, and Bertie's brother, the Prince of Wales, played well by Guy Pearce in his brief appearances, is determined to continue his relationship with the twice-divorced, Wallis Simpson, the possibility that Bertie, rather than his brother David, as the Prince of Wales was known in the family, would succeed their father on the throne increased. Bertie ever more desperately needs to overcome the stutter.

Derek Jacobi, as Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang, is a delight to watch and comes close to stealing every scene he's in, and Michael Gambon as George V is excellent. Claire Bloom, as usual, shines in her cameo part as George V's consort, Queen Mary. Anthony Andrews plays Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. I hadn't seen Andrews act since the TV series "Danger UXB". Of course, I remember him best from his role as Sebastian Flyte in the magnificent "Brideshead Revisited" series. He's grown old, but not so old as I have. Although her appearance is brief, Eve Best is stunning as Wallis Simpson. The only casting with which I would take issue is Timothy Spall as Winston Chruchill. To me, Spall did not fit the part.

My fairly clear memories go back to the later years of World War II, so I remember seeing the Royal Family in the newsreels in the movie theater and in Life and Look magazines. I remember the times, and I remember the people, which probably made the film more enjoyable for me, especially since every aspect of the movie is so well done.

During the Blitz, George and Elizabeth remained at Buckingham Palace, which received several direct hits, and the girls were sent to stay at Windsor Castle. The two visited the bombed areas and the bomb shelters in London and conducted themselves altogether honorably throughout the war.

After Edward's abdication, he married the woman he loved, and, as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, they traipsed around the world partying for many years, with intense coverage by the media for, I suppose, their great skill at having a good time.

Well, I've rambled on with my reminiscences about the period, but I hope I did not do a spoiler review, and I urge you all to see the movie. Watch the trailer, if you like.

A MOVIE AND MUSIC

Today I drove my two grandchildren from Thibodaux to visit and spend the night with their cousins at my daughter's house in New Orleans. Then, I went on to see the movie, "The King's Speech", which was superb. Don't miss it! I'll write more later about the film, but I enjoyed every minute of it and left the theater on a high.

On the way home, I listened to the CD, "The River in Reverse", a collaboration by Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello, which kept me pretty much on a high all the way home. What a lovely way to spend a cold day.