The King's Speech

Impressions before seeing it
To be honest it looked a little boring, but watching this puts me at 6 out of the 10 best picture nominees at the Oscars this year. And I knew it at least had a capable cast.

How was it?
The title misled me somewhat, because I didn't realize it could be read two ways until I started watching the movie. There's "the king's speech" as in a speech given by the king, and there's "the king's speech" as in the king's way of speaking. I figured the title referred to the first one, but it's actually both. The King's Speech is about King George VI's (Colin Firth) problem with stammering and having to overcome it in order to give speeches, particularly an important one addressing the nation as the world heads into World War II. His wife (Helena Bonham Carter) finds him an elocution teacher (Geoffrey Rush) to help him speak properly.

So, yes, it can be boring to some people because it's one of those classy period pieces, but I found the elocution lessons to be interesting because I don't think I've seen that before, and Colin Firth was very good at making it look as if he were genuinely having trouble spitting words out. However I also got a little annoyed because it can be somewhat unpleasant listening to nearly two hours of someone talking with a lot of mid-sentence pauses, so watch out if that's something that bothers you. Also, for a little while I thought Guy Pearce's Prince Edward was gay because he showed flamboyant mannerisms and had a girlfriend named Wallis who was mentioned by name before she was revealed to be female. I guess he was just a prissy Englishman, or perhaps Pearce went a little over the top.

Recommendation
Personally it's not something I really need to see a second time, but it's worth watching once for the performances and the historical story, which you may or may not enjoy, depending on your interests and attention span.