Sometimes, we fail to find untold stories because we don't really want to. But when we do, we learn there's something far beyond that silence, that pause, making us realize how we know very little of fear, of hope, of friendship.
Judging by its cover, I must admit The King's Speech (2010, directed by Tom Hooper) was quite intimidating at first. I once thought it would be hard to understand because of the characters' British accent and its foreign history basis. But, simple, and hilarious as it is, the movie was mainly about the untold story of the king's speech.
If we hear it on the radio, we'd think it's just a mere pause. If it was a longer pause or even "two minutes of radio silence" after it was announced live, we'd think something's wrong with our wretched device. No one would ever think it was because "he stammers so beautifully".
The movie is about King George VI's (Colin Firth) struggles with his speech defect and how he managed it with the help of a "peculiar" speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). After many "medieval" treatments from knighted and officially "idiot" shrinks, Bertie (King George VI) had given up hope, save for his supportive and loving wife Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Helena Bonham Carter), who found Logue from the classifieds and gave him a shot.
After a rather unpleasant conversation between a proud then-prince and a radical therapist, the odds for another session were obviously ground at level zero, until Lionel won the bet and Bertie heard himself orating Shakespeare's "To Be or Not To Be" like the great orator himself.
And so the hilarious and drastic sessions begin. Tongue twisters. Physical therapies. Sway-while-you-give-a-speech techniques. Vowel deliveries. Sing-it strategies. With Lionel by his side, Bertie not only gained more confidence and less stammers in his speeches, but also a friend "he would never know what's for."
It was such an eye-opening story when Bertie began to pour his heart out to Lionel, saying how he was punished to correct his speech defect, like knocking his knees with metal splints and whacking his left hand so he would be right-handed. He shared how he was always teased by his family "B-B-B-Bertie" and how he feared to be king because his stammer spoils it all while he claims he's no more than a Naval officer than a king.
On the other hand, the movie was also a comedy hit especially during Bertie's therapy sessions with Lionel and when he shouted bad words in anger and frustration.
I was very amused at how the Harry Potter characters reunited in this movie, like Albus Dumbledore as King George V (Michael Gambon), Bellatrix Lestrange as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and Peter Pettigrew as Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall).
