The King’s Speech

In Brief:  An improbable subject becomes a magnificently enjoyable and moving film experience that needs to be seen in director Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010), the story of Britain's King George VI and his attempts — with the help of an unorthodox therapist — to overcome his speech impediment to become the wartime voice of his people. The film is a beautiful mixture of fact, supposition, historical name-dropping, reverence and irreverence (in about equal measure), and probably a degree of outright fantasy. But what matters is that it works. The climactic speech — beautifully underscored with the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 — turns out to be a scene of intensely emotional drama, no matter how corny that may sound. As entertainment and as one of the warmest and most human films, this is the essential Christmas movie. Movie-wise, you’re not going to get a better present this season. This excerpt was taken from a review by Ken Hanke published on Dec. 21, 2010.