My apologies to anti-piracy advocates. But I couldn’t help watching an unlawful reproduction of The King’s Speech in time for Oscar night. A lot of people are predicting a win for Colin Firth who played a stuttering royal. And they’re right – Firth must win the Oscar.
Firth doesn't just play the role of a would-be king battling an speech defect. If it were just about that, Michael Palin of A Fish Called Wanda would’ve stuttered more believably. But Firth inhabited the role with layers of emotion making George VI a real man struggling with issues and flaws that aren’t merely oratorical. He was a pained resident of the royal palace, a fearful son to a strong king, a reluctant ruler, arrogant and resentful of help from a speech therapist, friend-less but a loving husband. Colin Firth was all these, onscreen.
If you never liked British cinema because you think it’s snoozefest, reconsider, with The King’s Speech.
I’ve always like watching British films. As a pretentious child who grew up in a town that could not properly pronounce Leicester, I’d dream of playing Shakespeare and deliver lines like Olivier. Of course, it never happened and never will. Blame it on the Bahasa-influenced diphthongs that have forever ruled my speech patterns.
So, Firth does deserve an Oscar, like all the great British actors that came before him. They can recite highly stylized and complicated dialogue well, like it naturally came from them. The diction and inflection so crisp that you could make out words you don’t hear everyday. I also like how they control their body to communicate subtexts that Tom Cruise would otherwise spew.
But then again, there’s Sir Anthony Hopkins who’d think all this exaltation for anything British is all "hogwash". He once said, “I have no interest in Shakespeare all that British nonsense. I just want to be famous”.
Whatever. I'll use "hogwash", and say it as sharply and haughtily in my next client meeting.
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