Saturday, March 3, 2012

"The King's Speech" (2010): good acting, bad movie

You'd have to be a fool to have troubles with the performances of Colin Firth or Geoffrey Rush, although I must say the latter is getting perhaps too comfortable with these oddball roles.  But really, dumb movie.  Yes, overcoming something like a stutter is a tremendous achievement. And it does make you think about the life of solitude someone lives who suffers a stutter.

But this film was so incredibly formulaic.  To distinguish itself, the DP used very short lenses, which produced a claustrophobic-immensity effect that was very appropriate, given the fear of the King in approaching the world. But it could hardly work well outside of that POV, where it was also used with free hand.

Yana really wanted to see it. That's my mea culpa. She's part British, you know. I thought I should see it, but I didn't really want to see it. I suspected what I got.