It is said that the late Roy Castle once sang, danced, trumpeted and juggled at the old Glasgow Empire, famous for its heckling. In the unaccustomed silence between segments 3 and 4 of his act, a reverential wee voice piped up “Is there no end to this man’s talents?” Thus I salute Colin Firth’s latest outing.
After a masterful, beautiful, extraordinary performance as a 1962 Gay professor in A Single Man, he has now scaled most triumphantly the toff end of the Repressed Brit spectrum with The King’s Speech, an everyday tale of 1930’s Palace Folk. It contains of galaxy of UK character actors playing historic personages they don’t actually look like, but do it so well you don’t notice. Timothy Spall’s Churchill shines out particularly, but Stanley Baldwin or Cosmo Gordon Lang fans will also be impressed. Helena Bonham-Carter’s Young Queen Mum (before she hit the betting shops and gin) is amazing. This is the character list as it should have looked, not as it did. Why even Westminster Abbey looks like Ely Cathedral. However it is faultlessly acted, carried off in real style, and atmospherically rendered with the kind of production values associated with the old Merchant Ivory brand.
Here’s the skinny. George is the overbearing “Spit it out, boy!” Emperor King, the only character in the film who does look like the original. His two sons are embarrassingly different. David has charisma, but some unfortunate bedtime habits, a selfish nature and a thin fascist streak. Bertie is profoundly honourable with the will and talent to represent and serve his people, a pretty useful life skill in a man who would be king.
However Bertie also projects zero charisma, largely because of his disabling stutter. For a 1920’s naval officer this was manageable, indeed in an age when most signalling was conducted by Morse code, it could even have been an advantage. With wireless in the home, however, it is not enough to look like a king. You have to sound like one in people’s living rooms. An embarrassing own-goal at Wembley reveals that making love to a microphone is something Bertie could sooner get pregnant than reliably manage to do.
Enter Mr, not Dr, Lionel Logue, an Australian self-taught speech therapist with no qualifications but some world war one experiences and a ton of breezy antipodean freshness. This enables him to address the real Bertie directly, and unlock his voice through the transformative medium of friendship.
At the heart of every legendary working partnership is honest friendship based on equality, even, nay especially, if one partner is the King. King and Commoner work at it together. On the big day Bertie scores a bulls eye and really earns a chaste but sincere peck on the cheek from his Mrs. Civilisation is saved. What’s not to like? I defy anyone to leave the cinema without a heart full of warm cockles.
Acting is spot on, execution and cinematography is extraordinary, story is strong, even though everyone knows how it’s gong to end. Commercially minded execs may point out there’s not much scope for a “King’s Speech 2” unless some jaded studio hack comes up with a storyline where Hitler develops a speech defect and personally sends the schmutzigedutzend to kidnap Mr Logue. This would yield more action, perhaps, but less human interest. Fervent republicans may simply dislike the subject matter, perhaps, which certainly belongs to another age. What you see is what you get. However this film is a wonderful achievement, and manifestly deserves a chestful of gongs, ribbons, gold rope, and silver elephants on chains every bit as impressive as his majesty’s. 4.99 out of 5.
1962. In year of the Bay of Pigs and Marilyn Monroe’s death, George is an English professor of English at a slightly crummy West Coast school.
Like many English gay men of his generation George is fastidious, slightly waspish, up tight, and seriouly crippled inside. Having grown up in a society where his homosexuality was illegal, he has developed a rigid carapace of outward perfection behind which to try and live some kind of real life.
On the surface George has been rigidly correct. His only chance of finding real love has come from playing the conventions of a kind of coded gay freemasonry. Let out on the West Coast, being English is half that game, and in 1946 George managed to land Jim, a handsome young naval officer, as a lover. All went swimmingly with Jim for 16 years. Sadly Jim has died in a James Dean style auto smash. They wouldn't even allow George to attend the funeral, and behind George’s carapace, life is now a bloody great void. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps on the petty pace of George’s grief, from day to day. He feels he’s drowing in slow motion, and as Marilyn used to say, something’s gotta give.
Time, perhaps, for a last fling with George’s pathetic old excuse for a girlfriend Charley, faultlessly rendered by Julianne Moore. Charley is genuinely friendly, bubbly even, but well past her sell-by date. They have been friends since way back in London, fumbled under the sheets even, but she has been running on empty for years, even before her crappy marriage broke up, and is desperate for love. Everyone, including herself, knows she is wasting her time really, but can’t admit it.
And there friends, is 90% of the plot of Tom Ford’s A Single Man. It is a dense and beautifully crafted exploration of what life was like for Christopher Isherwood’s generation of gay men, and the performance of Colin Firth’s life. As usual he gets his shirt off underwater, but if you’ve been thinking of him as an amiable accessory for chick flicks, please think again.
Being George requires an extended feat of doing almost nothing externally, whilst being fully charged and fit to burst. Mr Firth does a brilliant job, beautifully executed, combining depth with poignancy and a quality the British seldom even recognise that the French call tendresse. This emotional charge is absolutely essential because without it, such has been the sea change in societal attitudes since 1962 that, unlike the original readers of Isherwood’s novel, most viewers under 40 will have absolutely no idea what all the fuss was about. This may be why some critics see the film as shallow. Why doesn’t George, they wonder, just get on with being gay? In its historical context, however, this film is anything but shallow.
So it is that a film by a fashion designer with almost no plot becomes a major work of art. It deserves a perfect ten.
It is said that the late Roy Castle once sang, danced, trumpeted and juggled at the old Glasgow Empire, famous for its heckling. In the unaccustomed silence between segments 3 and 4 of his act, a reverential wee voice piped up “Is there no end to this man’s talents?” Thus I salute Colin Firth’s latest outing.
After a masterful, beautiful, extraordinary performance as a 1962 Gay professor in A Single Man, he has now scaled most triumphantly the toff end of the Repressed Brit spectrum with The King’s Speech, an everyday tale of 1930’s Palace Folk. It contains of galaxy of UK character actors playing historic personages they don’t actually look like, but do it so well you don’t notice. Timothy Spall’s Churchill shines out particularly, but Stanley Baldwin or Cosmo Gordon Lang fans will also be impressed. Helena Bonham-Carter’s Young Queen Mum (before she hit the betting shops and gin) is amazing. This is the character list as it should have looked, not as it did. Why even Westminster Abbey looks like Ely Cathedral. However it is faultlessly acted, carried off in real style, and atmospherically rendered with the kind of production values associated with the old Merchant Ivory brand.
Here’s the skinny. George is the overbearing “Spit it out, boy!” Emperor King, the only character in the film who does look like the original. His two sons are embarrassingly different. David has charisma, but some unfortunate bedtime habits, a selfish nature and a thin fascist streak. Bertie is profoundly honourable with the will and talent to represent and serve his people, a pretty useful life skill in a man who would be king.
However Bertie also projects zero charisma, largely because of his disabling stutter. For a 1920’s naval officer this was manageable, indeed in an age when most signalling was conducted by Morse code, it could even have been an advantage. With wireless in the home, however, it is not enough to look like a king. You have to sound like one in people’s living rooms. An embarrassing own-goal at Wembley reveals that making love to a microphone is something Bertie could sooner get pregnant than reliably manage to do.
Enter Mr, not Dr, Lionel Logue, an Australian self-taught speech therapist with no qualifications but some world war one experiences and a ton of breezy antipodean freshness. This enables him to address the real Bertie directly, and unlock his voice through the transformative medium of friendship.
At the heart of every legendary working partnership is honest friendship based on equality, even, nay especially, if one partner is the King. King and Commoner work at it together. On the big day Bertie scores a bulls eye and really earns a chaste but sincere peck on the cheek from his Mrs. Civilisation is saved. What’s not to like? I defy anyone to leave the cinema without a heart full of warm cockles.
Acting is spot on, execution and cinematography is extraordinary, story is strong, even though everyone knows how it’s gong to end. Commercially minded execs may point out there’s not much scope for a “King’s Speech 2” unless some jaded studio hack comes up with a storyline where Hitler develops a speech defect and personally sends the schmutzigedutzend to kidnap Mr Logue. This would yield more action, perhaps, but less human interest. Fervent republicans may simply dislike the subject matter, perhaps, which certainly belongs to another age. What you see is what you get. However this film is a wonderful achievement, and manifestly deserves a chestful of gongs, ribbons, gold rope, and silver elephants on chains every bit as impressive as his majesty’s. 4.99 out of 5.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=487c4296-69e0-40d2-ba5e-6b2f4b868c91)
