The theatre showing The King's Speech was packed for the 3:00 Saturday matinee in Bethesda, MD yesterday. Sold out. The crowd resembled the one at the Bob Dylan concert I attended a month ago. The film starred the Masterpiece Theatre stock company:
Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, and Helena Bonham-Carter. The plot was a cross between
The Queen,
My Fair Lady, and
Young Victoria. I had been told to see the film for the first time in an email from my UCLA Film/TV film structure professor, Dr. Howard Suber. Then, I read the rave reviews in the local press here in DC. So, it was a "must-see."
My verdict. It's OK. Not a great story, not a great script, nice production values, good acting--in sum: thoroughly enjoyable Anglophile porn. Now that
Masterpiece Theatre has become hit-or-miss, and the rest of the movie industry makes super-big-screen video games, this is the best we can hope for. Solid Christmas entertainment, with emotional uplift, and ex-colonial solidarity.
Rupert Murdoch must have enjoyed watching this picture, since the moral seems to be that a despised Aussie speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush saved the British throne from Hitler...
