The King's Speech

It has been a long while since I have blogged anything; since I have reviewed any movies; since I have enjoyed myself enough to take the time to. I am coming back to my familiarity of myself and what it is that I, Katalin, do. What do I do? I relax, I take my time doing things. I go to work, I get off work, I come home, figure out dinner, go read, watch something on TV that interests me...etc. etc. I am simple. I have a simple foundation. And I am learning how to keep it travel size so I can take it with me where ever I end up. I recently had the epiphany that everything around me can change, but I can stay the same. Just because my environment changes doesn't have to change the person I am inside. My clothes, my home, my car can all change...But the person I am on the inside doesn't have to. She just adapts and decides what she will accept as change and what she won't. Very liberating epiphany. I have found a huge part of myself.

I had the utmost pleasure of getting to go see The King's Speech yesterday. There wasn't one element of this film that didn't hit the right pitch and note. The soundtrack blended and complimented the script and actor ensemble. The filmography was precise and eloquent. The actor ensemble itself was seamless and natural. I never was reminded through this movie that any of them were actors playing parts, I was safely convinced what I was watching was real. Colin Firth plays the Duke of York, not yet king, and Helena Bonham Carter plays his wife. Geoffrey Rush plays Lionel Loge.

If you don't already know what it is about, it is about King George VI of England as he takes the throne while his country England is on the brink of war with Hitler's Germany. The king has an issue though that prevents him from representing his country by broadcast: he stammers. At this critical hour in history when the world needed a voice to speak for the people, he stumbled through and across basic sentences. His wife tried finding as many speech therapists as possible to help him overcome his problem to no avail, until one day she found Lionel Loge. Lionel was not a qualified doctor of speech therapy and yet had been in the Austrian military to help recovering soldiers with speech problems that come with trauma. Upon meeting the duke, he promptly tells him, he will only work with him on an equal level starting with names. He will address the duke as Bertie, and be addressed as Lionel himself. He creates a trust and friend level to help Bertie realize that past issues are a huge part of the cause stammering affects certain people.

The historical value of this film is priceless and the mode of it carried out is done beautifully. One of the most wonderful aspects I came away with after seeing this film was the theme that it isn't who we are statistically, or what our personal/physical faults are that make us who we are as humans. It is whether we recognize our status and faults and step up to the challenge to overcome our fears that will define us. It was inspiring to know that based upon true events, a duke stepped up to face the challenge of overcoming his inability to speak and to be king, so that he could speak for his nation to step up to the challenge of fighting against Nazism/socialism that threatened the very humanity of the world.

I sit back and look at all the things he faced and struggled to overcome, and I realize we all have challenges to face, myself included. The question is will most of us fight that uphill battle, or will we go around it and not reach our potential?