Plot Summary – King George VI tries to overcome his stammering problem with the help of speech therapist Lionel Logue and makes himself worthy enough to lead his country through World War II.

★★★★ 

Watched 29 Nov, 2020

To contextualize the reactions to this film, I had to watch and read some reviews of this film before the 2011 Oscars because to me, this film always was the one that beat my favourite movie, The Social Network for Best Picture that year and I never watched it out of pure contempt. I sort of regret that now because after taking off my lens of bias, this is actually a really good film. Colin Firth gives one of the best performances of the decade and his stammer was so goddamn convincing. Tom Hooper was actually really good before he went off the musical deep end with Les Mis and then in a much worse way with Cats. His direction in this film is impeccable. The use of cinematography is also mindblowing as it makes use of shot blocking and symmetry to communicate power dynamics. My main issue with the film is that it’s very safe and Oscar-baity. Had it taken a little more risks and explored a few character dynamics in more detail, this could have been a masterpiece. It’s still a solid film and I quite enjoyed it.