Quick Review: The King's Speech

"The King's Speech" stars Michael Sheen as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has to...wait, what? This is a movie about British royalty and/or politics and it doesn't have Sheen as Blair? Hmmm. Okay, let's start over. "The King's Speech" stars Colin Firth as King George VI, who had to overcome a speech impediment and deliver a radio address to his people after war was declared against Germany in 1939. Of course, the film actually starts well before this, when he's just the plain old Duke of York; after failed attempts to correct his stammer he gives up, until his wife (Helena Bonham Carter) goes behind his back and seeks out Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), whose unconventional methods (such as insisting on calling each other by their first names) infuriate the Duke until he realizes that they seem to work. It probably worked better for me because it's a story I wasn't familiar with, but even so it's sort of predictable. For a drama, though, it's got a surprising amount of humor. It doesn't make my top 10 of 2010, even though it's an Oscar Best Picture nominee, but it's still fine. My grade: B-plus.