'King's Speech' a rich, royal treat

Tom Hooper's “The King's Speech” is about many things, but mostly it's about an insecure man who racks up the courage to put aside his pride to simply ask another man for help.

And for that difficult act of humility, he is rewarded with a nation's gratitude, and perhaps more important, a lifetime of friendship.

This fact-based drama features two of the best, most fully realized film performances of the year by Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, backed up by David Seidler's crisp and witty screenplay, Alexandre Desplat's evocative score and an amazing movie set that's not really a movie set at all, but an actual London apartment discovered by production designer Eve Stewart.

“The King's Speech” details the unusual relationship that developed between England's King George VI and an Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue.

Early on, King George V (erstwhile Harry Potter professor Michael Gambon) underscores the importance of public speaking as a monarch, particularly when using high-tech radio to speak to the masses in the 1930s.

His son, Prince Albert, the Duke of York (Firth), lives in terror of public speaking because of a terrible stammer that has afflicted him since childhood.

He doesn't worry too much about rallying people with his words. His older brother Prince Edward (the chameleonic Guy Pearce) is the heir to the throne, and he's never at a loss for things to say.

But we already know about Edward, don't we? The king who threw away his crown so he could marry his true, divorced love, a commoner an action that would put his brother on the throne?

Before that happens, though, the duke's astute wife Elizabeth (another Harry Potter alum, Helena Bonham Carter) seeks out the services of bold, results-oriented therapist, Logue (Rush), and books an appointment.

But she doesn't reveal the patron's true identity.

“The King's Speech” traces the volatile relationship between the two men, both headstrong and proud.

Firth's tradition-bound duke instantly chafes under Aussie Logue's insistence that they use their first names, Lionel and “Bertie.” The duke refuses.

“My game. My turf. My rules,” Logue says.

So, Bertie and Lionel go about their unorthodox sessions to cure the future King George VI of his stutter, for we know that war with Nazi Germany is brewing and England's king will be the voice that rallies his country to the cause of fighting fascism during a key 1939 broadcast.

There is a lot more on the line for Bertie than pride.

Hooper previously directed the fact-based sports opera “The Damned United,” a tidy little drama that astutely sidestepped the clichés of the sports genre.

In “The King's Speech,” Hooper similarly dodges the expected, and, with help from Danny Cohen's nimble camera work, takes what essentially could have been a photographed stage play and transforms every scene into a cinematic treat for the eyes.

Logue's spacious office quarters the location found by Hooper's production designer is a large room equipped with majestic skylights and walls that look as though an impressionist painter went berserk on them.

“The King's Speech” contains no jokes, yet, packs a lot of humor in its throwaway lines delivered by well-wrought characters we instantly bond with and easily understand.

“T ... t... timing,” Bertie explains to Lionel, “isn't my strong suite.”

Although “The King's Speech” is rated R, parents can give extra latitude to this marvelously made movie. The unjustly harsh rating was given to a short moment when Bertie cuts loose with a humorous string of f-bombs while expressing his frustration to his voice coach.

It doesn't seem fair to brand this movie with the same rating given to films containing graphic torture porn.

If anything, this remarkably well-made drama is a valentine to teachers, and if viewed properly, should make stuttering less a target for ridicule and more of an invitation for compassion.

“The King's Speech”

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon

Directed by: Tom Hooper

Other: A Weinstein Company release. Opens at the Century 12 in Evanston, the Landmark Century Centre in Chicago and the AMC River East 21 in Chicago. Rated R for language. 118 minutes