Oscar-Worthy

In what can only be seen as a mad movie-viewing spree, we watched yet another movie the other night! We finally saw the much-touted Oscar winner, "The King's Speech." It was wonderful. I haven't seen all the Oscar contenders, but it certainly felt best-picture-y to me, and Colin Firth gave a truly stirring best-actor-y performance.

Of course everyone knows that it's the true story of Bertie, AKA King George VI, who reluctantly assumes the throne when his brother chooses instead to marry a (gasp!) American who has been (gasp!) divorced. Not only does Bertie not wish to be king, he is plagued by a serious stuttering problem that leaves him silently choking and grimacing whenever he needs to make a radio address to the world (or just speak to his family). The plot revolves around his relationship with an unorthodox speech therapist, played by Geoffrey Rush. Everything is done well in this movie. Firth's plaintive expressions reveal his frustrations and fears and disappointments, at the same time that he is driven to do the right thing (unlike his brother). His patient, loving, and supportive wife (the future Queen Mum) is played by Helena Bonham Carter.

As the parents of a stutterer, it was downright painful for us to watch some of the scenes where Bertie is trying desperately to get a sentence out while everyone around him is tensely waiting and wondering if he'll be able to. Pete is barely even self-conscious about his stutter, but it's not too hard to imagine a time when he will be. Interestingly, though, he did not wish to watch the movie with us, although the girls did.* And I do think it would have been uncomfortable and upsetting for him to see the difficult scenes, even though the good scenes were really good. I recommend this movie to just about everyone, and I'd love to hear from any adult stutterers who watched it—what did you think?

*Yes, we know it's rated R, which is positively insane. There is one scene in which the speech therapist discovers that Bertie does not stutter when he swears, so he has him let loose a string of "Fuck! Shit! Titties! Bugger!" That is the one and only scene that is even remotely R-rated. There is no violence, no blood or gore, no sex or nudity, no drug use. There is that lone two-minute scene of swearing—done in the form of speech therapy, not in anger or hatred—that cost the film a PG-13, or even PG, or possibly even G rating. Which is not to say that it's a great family movie—Julie was pretty bored, while Steph seemed mostly eager to watch just so that she could say she'd seen an R movie. I'd much rather have them watch this than a movie where people are getting shot and stabbed and dismembered.

Comments

[L]

Hi, Karen. I've had spasmodic dysphonia for nearly 30 years (a rare, neurologically based disorder that produces strangled-sounding speech; it's treated, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, with Botox injections directly into the vocal cords -- for me, about every eight weeks for the past 25 years, except when I was pregnant). I experienced this film with both emotional pain and a great sense of relief -- the latter because the film might help people understand how profoundly difficult it is to be shut off from expressing oneself. Talking is so fundamental to the human experience. Firth did an extraordinary job of conveying the complex array of emotions (and sometimes the sheer terror) that one can experience in trying to speak in important situations. I loved this movie, and hope it will expand people's understanding. True empathy for our fellow human beings is in short supply in this world, this being just one very small example.

[Jonathan]

Be sure to read Christopher Hitchens' posts on the bad history in it, esp. now that you've watched it:

http://www.slate.com/id/2285695/

Your reaction to the R rating was the same as mine when I found out that Once is rated R. What a wonderful, sweet, thoughtful movie that I'm dying to watch with my kids. A few F-bombs at the beginning and it gets an R rating? And The Dark Knight, with its relentless darkness, violence, explosions and garotting, gets a PG-13? A joke.

[kate]

On a sort of related note, we watched the Kids are All Right last night - yuck. I was surprised this was oscar-worthy even though I usually love Annette Benning. At the end of the movie my husband said he hated all the characters equally.

[Rohini]

I liked this movie so much. Of course, I have no clue about the real king and his speech and all that, but I felt the characters fit perfectly. And I hung onto every dialog of Rush, i loved him so! its ridiculous, the R rating..
my husband was actually sad that 'the King' didn't know so many swear words. !!