Rich man, Poor man?

I had no idea how this was going to turn out, cherishing a long love of Alec Guinness work. My memory of his 'Smiley' seemed  unassailable and Gary Oldman a bit of an odd choice but if ever there was an actor who grabbed a role and ran with it, it is Oldman in this.

He is surrounded by a stellar cast of English actors, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy  and many more, moving through the grimy air of cold war Europe. If it was possible to feel the chill radiating from the grim little apartments and squalid streets the superb camera work does it for you...thats over and above the wrecked lives and entrenched sexism. Nevertheless they still managed to sqeeze in some of the glamour and glitz of those days as I remember them.

There is a sense of ever present threat and also the feeling that WW2 was not long over and memories and hard times not gone yet. Sex and alcohol seem to have taken the the place of love and the love that dared not speak its name, dared only be underground or gone. Women are whores or saints. Its not a musical.

Near the end, when they are closing in on the rat in the ranks you see how the 'team' pull together in an almost balletic sequence of threat and intimidation which took my breath away. And like a fool I had not realised why they called the character 'Smiley'. I do now. Oldman glides through these scenes with the same amiable appearance he has used to comfort and entertain.

If you want to see what a Cold War can do to those who are set up to prevent a warm one, see 'Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy'. And see if you can spot 'Le Carre' in his cameo role.

Talk to Me

My family had problems of the kind this beautiful film depicts. Stammering or stuttering is an insidious and devastating affliction - you never know how much you can feel for someone until you find you can not help them through a horrible ordeal. There are few public troubles worse than willing someone you love through a speech they seem unable to begin. God bless the ones who guide people out of it.

And what a job they do of it in this movie. I have always wondered at actors who learn speech defects because they are so difficult to lose. Same with weight gains and losses - any sort of affliction which will take a deal of unlearning. Apparently this was excruciatingly tough for Colin Firth and I believe it. It is completely convincing and that must have been hell.

Geoffrey Rush is wonderful and having just seen him in 'The Diary of a Madman' perhaps we should all be grateful for the training in mime he did in France earlier on in his career. He uses movement like a dancer and it never fails. He is unpredictable, irreverent and irresistible as speech therapist Lionel Logue. Nice to think that the Logue family wanted to make the story public earlier but deferred to the wishes of the Queen Mother who could not bear to rake through the memories again.

Good to remember also that because of this remarkable Australian's work with the king the monarch was able to open the first Australian Government in the new capitol: Australia's Federal Parliament.

I knew King George VI had no wish to be crowned but I did not know how extreme his speech problems were. However it does now make sense of a strange event in history which has always puzzled me. Churchill attached a note to his wreath at the King's funeral which said simply 'For Courage'. Now we know why.


To see a trailer of 'The King's Speech, Click here: