Today marks a first for Chi Wulff.
For the first time in almost four years of blogging about fly fishing and other tangentially related things, we’re posting a movie review that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with fly fishing, rivers, oceans, food, booze, sex or what ever else it is that occupies the (sometimes) vacuous minds of fly fisher folk.
The weather’s been decidedly unfishy the past few days here in exile.
[Yep, we’re still in Austin, and intend no offense to those who are undeniably certain the entire known universe exists within the borders of the Lone Star state. Such beliefs stem the migration of such individuals northward and/or westward.]
Given such, She Who Must Be Obeyed had a day off from leading her team; she won the day yesterday and we took in a movie. We’ve both been wanting to see the so far little heralded movie The King’s Speech.
Attempting to distill our appraisal into its simplest terms, I can only offer this – we found the movie shockingly entertaining and inspiring.
The movie is set in pre-WWII England in the years that mark the end of the reign of King George V; the tone of the era – the Great Depression and the imposing rise of Nazi Germany – permeates the film without overwhelming its message.
Stunningly shot and edited (impressive use of Kubrick’s 18 mm wides), the based on real life story details the struggles the Duke of York, Prince Albert, aka Bertie, (Colin Firth) endured with his life long stammer / stutter.
Though the cast of supporting characters, including Timothy Spall playing a pretty damned impressive Churchill, is very strong, the show is stolen by Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue. Logue is an eccentric Australian specialist who masterfully treats the reluctant King-to-be using an entertaining array of unorthodox methods.
The King’s Speech is a story of personal and national courage and the development of a friendship that spanned the class culture of the day.
The King’s Speech does what movies used to do: it tells a wonderful story – impressively without the use of CGI, aliens, car chases, bloody mayhem or gratuitous sex (though one might suppose that it is implied).
Great actors weaving great performances with superlative dialogue. What a novelty.
It’s been years since we’ve sat in a full theatre that was moved to applause at the conclusion of a movie as our fellow movie-goers were yesterday. (From reviews I’ve read that’s been happening all over the world…..)
My feeble attempts at a review are far from adequate; here are a couple from opposite ends of the spectrum – the Rolling Stone’s review and the Wall Street Journal’s.
Don’t miss this one.
