Alliance Films is releasing The King’s Speech on DVD April 19th, and also The Royal Collection box set.  Which contains The King’s Speech, The Queen, The Young Victoria, Shakespeare In Love, and Vanity Fair.  At first, I assumed the box set was being released to celebrate the Oscar success of The King’s Speech (Best Picture, Best Actor for Colin Firth). 

     On closer examination, however, it says quite clearly on the box – this DVD set is being released to commemorate the Royal Wedding!  That Prince William Kate Middleton thing coming up in a couple of weeks.  I guess the idea is that people will buy the box, get their royal on for a couple of weeks, and be extra-pumped for the Big Day involving people they have never met and will likely never pay attention to again.

     I like most of the movies on this set.  I think that some are great.  I hope people DO buy this box set, because a lot of these films are worth owning.  But if you buy it in preparation for the royal wedding, I will think less of you.  Much less.  Just saying.  Anyway, here are the five films, and their accompanying reviews.

The King’s Speech (********8/10)

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Year:  2010
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Jennifer Ehle, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi
Director:  Tom Hooper
Run time:  111 minutes

     It seems that there is a fairly easy formula to follow when it comes to making a run at a bunch of Oscars.  Make a period piece starring mostly British actors about a British monarch.  (The Queen, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Peter O’Toole, Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave…and so on.)  Now, if only there were some way to get Nazis into the movie also, it would be a shoo-in, right?  As it turns out, yes.

     The King’s Speech, of course, deals very little with actual Nazis.  The scourge of Hitler and his war in Europe serve only as the catalyst for the speech of the title.  King George VI (Colin Firth), in 1939, had to speak to all of Great Britain in a radio address on the occasion of the declaration of war against Germany at the beginning of World War II.  In order to make this incredibly important speech, the king sought the help of speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) in an effort to correct his rather pronounced stammer.  Logue’s methods are not exactly traditional, and he insists upon calling the new king by his childhood pet name, Bertie.

     The stutter tends to come out of Bertie only when he is nervous or flustered, which seems to be most of the time.  He and Logue delve deep into his childhood, in increments, over the course of the movie, but it’s never clear whether some childhood trauma caused the stammer, or if there is a breakthrough of any kind on that front.  Really, this is just a story about two men from two distinctly different classes becoming friends and learning to trust each other.  Logue is a failed Australian actor with a certain amount of disdain for the monarchy, Bertie has spent his whole life shielded from the common class by the bubble that surrounds the royal family.

     And that, along with the performances by Rush and Firth, is the strength of the movie.  The class distinctions are drawn expertly, and the attention to detail in the costumes and backdrops is remarkable.  The strange thing for me though is that the King overcoming his speech difficulties is actually the second most interesting thing happening in the film.  At the time, and in the history of the British monarchy, the biggest story of the past hundred years was the abdication of the throne by Bertie’s playboy brother Edward (Guy Pearce) so he could marry thrice-divorced Wallis Simpson (Eve Best).  That was a gigantic scandal at the time, and remains one of the most interesting stories in the history of the British royals.

     The fact that Edward’s abdication and carelessness are treated as a minor subplot irks me a little.  It seems to be thrown into the movie more as a way to show the callousness with which Edward treats Bertie than as a seriously large event.  It’s a minor quibble though with an otherwise terrific movie.  British royalty period pieces always get nominated for Oscars.  But they rarely interest me throughout, and even more rarely do they manage not to bore me.  The King’s Speech is NOT the best movie made this year.  Even though won Best Picture, as it was designed to do.  But it IS one of the best British period films made in a long time.  And that makes it well worth seeing for anyone.

The Queen (*********9/10)

Year:  2006
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Sylvia Syms, Mark Bazeley, Earl Cameron, Tim McMullan
Director:  Stephen Frears
Run time:  101 minutes

     Although Helen Mirren has long been one of the most respected British actresses in the world, it wasn’t until The Queen in 2006 that she attained real international celebrity to go along with the accolades.  A Best Actress Oscar win will do that.  Or maybe it was just that the world needed 27 years to get the taste of Caligula out of their collective mouths.  No pun intended.  Actually hey – this is a royal box set!  Shouldn’t it contain Caligula as well?

     This same year, as Mirren was winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, she was also winning several awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in a made-for-TV miniseries.  That made this her definitive role, almost 40 years into her magnificent career.

     Michael Sheen, on the other hand, stars here in HIS definitive role, one that he managed to score in only his third starring appearance in a movie.  That movie was 2003′s The Deal, helmed by Stephen Frears, a TV docudrama about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown opposing Margaret Thatcher.  His remarkable resemblance to Tony Blair gave Michael Sheen a role for life.  In The Queen, also helmed by Frears, he played Blair for the second time.  And then again in The Special Relationship.  And likely many more times to come.  People are, right now, dreaming up movie scripts about Tony Blair simply because Michael Sheen exists.

     The two are wonderful in The Queen, which is the best movie in this set.  In addition to Sheen and Mirren, a fantastic script from Peter Morgan.  At the beginning, Queen Elizabeth and Blair are just as we expect them to be – almost comical in a way, as our perceptions of the Queen’s regal attitude border on silliness.  Then, halfway through, the tone of the film changes entirely, and we get a deep, serious look at the doubts that plague both protagonists.

     As the Queen herself, Mirren is flawless.  She is not just regal, she exudes authority by her very presence.  And while it may be easy to laugh at the frivolities of the archaic monarchy, it’s a nervous laughter we experience when the subject of the mockery is also a truly intimidating personality.  This movie works beginning to end, and is very close to being absolutely perfect.

The Young Victoria (******6/10)

Year:  2009
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent, Thomas Kretschmann, Mark Strong
Director:  Jean-Marc Vallee
Run time:  100 minutes

     It’s got costumes!  And royalty!  And soul-searching and wistful longing and staring and pageantry!  What more could you ask for in a royalty-themed British-accented period piece?  Well, more Oscars, maybe.  No Oscars for The Young Victoria, which at heart is a pretty pedantic if sumptuous entry into the familiar royals-when-they-were-young category of movies.

     Emily Blunt is suitably icy-fiery as the young Queen Victoria, as she ascended to the throne as a teenager.  Of course, being unmarried, who she chose as a husband carried with it international implications.  All that is fine, but how much actual ruling did she do?  Who cares – the only thing that can make a royalty-themed period piece appeal even more to people who like royalty-themed period pieces is a romance.  In this case, the romantic entanglement comes courtesy Prince Albert (Rupert Friend).

     To be fair, The Young Victoria does, in fact, involve a fair amount of country-ruling.  The only problem is that much of the problems Victoria faces as the young, inexperienced monarch of a country are seen through the prism of the romance, which has to be the central theme of the movie.  The Young Victoria is decent, and had it been actually good, it might have won Oscars.  Costumes, British accents, and romanceromanceromance!  It hit all the bases.  2009 must have been a very disappointing Oscar year for this average movie.

Shakespeare In Love (******6/10)

Year:  1998
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Imelda Staunton, Ben Affleck, Tom Wilkinson, Jim Carter, Martin Clunes, Rupert Everett
Director:  John Madden
Run time:  122 minutes

     One of the most undeserving Oscar winners in recent memory was Judi Dench.  Not that she wasn’t fantastic in her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, but she had about four minutes of screen time.  Best Supporting Actress?  Usually that means you were in the movie. 

     One of the least deserving Best Actress Oscar winners in recent memory was Gwyneth Paltrow.  Not that she wasn’t super-hot in Shakespeare In Love, and passable as the charming Lady Viola who disguises herself to appear as a man in stage plays.  But the role really, in the end, had little substance.  Joseph Fiennes, as Shakespeare, was better.  But he was not even considered for a Best Actor, really.  Maybe because he’s Joseph Fiennes.

     And perhaps the least-deserving Best Picture Oscar winner in decades…Shakespeare In Love!  Oh, it’s a decent movie.  It’s even above-average, and the screenplay really is wonderful (and the screenplay DID deserve an Oscar).  And not to rehash all the bad blood from a decade ago, but here’s a quick list of films that did NOT win the Oscar in 1998…The Thin Red Line, Out of Sight, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Elizabeth, Life Is Beautiful…oh never mind.  Here’s one title to sum it all up -Saving Private Ryan.

     So now that I’ve complained, all over again, about the Oscar travesty of 1998, I will now turn my attention to another complaint.  How come this movie is in the “royalty” box set?  Was it that four minutes of Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth?  Or does “royalty” now just mean “British people in costumes”?

Vanity Fair (****4/10)

Year:  2004
Genre:  Drama, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai, James Purefoy, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Rhys Ifans, Gabriel Byrne, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, Ruth Sheen
Director:  Mira Nair
Run time:  140 minutes

     William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel was a biting, caustic satire of the British class system.  Here, Vanity Fair (and its heroine, Becky Sharp) get some serious star power from Reese Witherspoon.  And a serious dumbing-down from screenwriters and directors and producers and everyone else involved with the film.  In the novel, Becky is a very unlikeable, unsympathetic heroine.  At times, even downright detestable.

     In this 2004 movie, Becky has all her hard edges dulled, her more caustic personality traits eliminated, and even at her absolute worst, Witherspoon makes sure that Becky remains charming and likeable.  Which has the effect of completely missing the point of the whole story.  When bad things happen to Becky, we feel like the world is being unfair, and we feel sorry for her.  Poor Becky, things are going from bad to worse!

     That’s not the Becky I expect.  This ambitious, backstabbing, vicious social climber is not to be pitied, she is getting what’s coming to her.  And, in fact, not nearly enough of what ought to be coming to her.  But this movie simply refuses to make her unsympathetic.  Or maybe it’s in Reese Witherspoon’s contract.  “I MUST play a charming rogue at worst!”

     One thing I will say for this version of Vanity Fair – it’s the only movie I have ever seen where the main character is named Becky but she is NOT perky with a pony tail and tight track pants with headphones on.  So…that’s something.  And once again, I would point out that just because it’s a period piece does not make it a “royalty” movie.  That connection is tenuous at best for the worst movie in this box set.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 18th, 2011 at 8:38 am and is filed under 1998, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, Drama, History, Period. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.