The King's Speech

The King's Speech is a fantastic movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should go.  Personally, I love Geoffory Rush and Colin Firth.  I started smiling during Rush's first scene, and I kept that grin on my face almost the whole movie--not that it was always funny, but that I just love watching him act, he's so fantastic.  The rest of the cast was also wonderful, full of all my favorite British actors. 

I thought it was funny that everybody in the movie was typecast.  Colin Firth played the tempermental nobleman, Geoffory Rush played the quirky doctor, Derek Jacobi was a clergyman, Timothy Spall plays a character role: Winston Churchill.

The only one who didn't fit was Helena Bonham Carter, playing the Duchess who becomes Queen Mary.  Carter has played queens before, most recently as the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and before that as Queen Jane.  But we don't really think of her as queenly.  She is known for her strange performances and even stranger public image.  I think of Fight Club as her defining role.  But I loved seeing her play as sweet character again.  It reminded me more of her role in A Room with a View, one of my favorite movies of all time.  In The King's Speech, she played a devoted wife.  In every scene, she portrayed a women who loved her husband and wanted to help him overcome his challenges.  You could see her eyes filled with love when she watched him struggle with his speach impediment.  You knew that she would do anything for him if she could only help him. 

I watched her and thought, that is the kind of wife I want to be.  Hollywood brainwashing?  Perhaps.  But I don't mind being brainwashed into doing something good and beautiful.  Would you?