I finally got to see The King's Speech a few nights ago and it was wonderful! I enjoyed placing some of my favorite cast members that just always seem to pop up in good British films (Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Jacobi, Geoffrey Rush, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall, Anthony Andrews). Also that kid who played Hama in LOTR: TTT plays Lionel Logue's eldest son who kind of pops up in the end. I looked him up on IMDB and found that he has kids and a grandson; and he's Phillippa Boyens son. What? Ironically his birthday is also only 12 days after mine...which means that he's 12 days younger than me and has a grandchild...?Okay so aside from being distracted by Calum Gittens (Logue's eldest son/Hama; also what kind of name is Calum Gittens?) I loved the slow flow of the film, the cinematography and the acting. Firth and Rush have this wonderfully antagonistic relationship; each one challenges the other so much that they have no other choice but to respect one another. Firth and Bonham Carter also display a really unique and accepting bond of support throughout the film. As mentioned earlier the cinematography is beautiful - two favorite sets are Logue's office and Westminster Abbey. Logue's office is delightfully shabby and the mosaic of subdued colors and overabundance of space just make it have a quirky and unknowable tone. Westminster abbey is, of course, wonderful and the way they used the HUGE arched ceilings really corresponded with the overwhelming feelings that both Firth and Logue are meant to be having at that point in the film. Lastly, the film is slow but somehow it wasn't boring. You listen to Firth stutter and there are tons of these painful silences and none of it was done to the point of exasperation - I still wanted to keep watching! His final speech was the most halting and slow speech I've ever heard but I was captured by it - between the cuts to his family, listeners around England, and his faithful elocutionist, there was just a wealth of detail to take in during his drawn out, and halted monologue.
Excursus: How is it that Guy Pearce makes characters SO pretentious and unlikable?
2 comments:
I loved that movie. The acting was just so good!
Are you sure that dude has a grandkid?
We just saw that movie that loved it too! Colin Firth's physical acting kills me in it - it almost literally hurt my mouth, neck, throat, and jaw to see him straining like that. Ugh I feel choked just thinking about it
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