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The King's Speech
The King's Speech
Wed, 4 May 2011
Bringing to light a little-known true story from the byways of the British royal family, has made this period drama a surprise box-office success and an awards-season favourite, but why should we care so much that King George VI masters his speech impediment? Trevor Johnston takes a close look at David Seidler’s screenplay, and discovers the dramatic potential and readymade story structure inherent in the doctor-patient relationship. Spoilers ahead, as we enter the consulting room…
It’s a truism so obvious it hardly needs repeating. If you want to keep an audience involved for an hour and a half, you need a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Strange as it might seem, not every dramatic situation fits these specs, since we’ve all seen those hole-in-the-middle movies where, for instance, the set-up’s followed by much treading of water before a big finale resolves matters long after we’ve stopped caring. Knowing when your story has got what it takes to go all the way is one of the fundamentals of screenwriting craft, but help is at hand, since some scenarios fit the bill pretty much off-the-peg.
Patients and doctors seem to land in that category. Someone has a problem, the doc tries to help them – maybe they get better, maybe they don’t. Fairly rudimentary really, but it provides any film with a lot of what the story needs. There’s rooting interest, since we in the audience can easily identify with the patient, given that we could easily be in the same position ourselves. There’s suspense, because we don’t know whether the outcome will be positive or negative. Potential conflict too, especially if doctor and patient don’t see eye to eye, which often comes into play when the story has a shrink pushing someone on the couch to face up to issues they’ve perhaps been hiding from. And all of this gains dramatic traction since there’s something at stake: what deepening crisis does the patient face if the doctor doesn’t manage to cure them after all?
Certainly, it worked in Good Will Hunting, for instance, allowing Matt Damon’s blue-collar maths genius the chance to fulfil his potential if only maverick psychologist Robin Williams can put the lad’s head back on straight. The fact that writers Damon and Ben Affleck tied their protagonist’s travails into issues of class tension and self-worth however, illustrates one of the problems with this kind of story – unless the writer connects it to questions larger than the difficulties of one individual, there’s a risk it might seem too small for the cinema screen. 
Analyze ThisAnalyze This gets round this issue by subverting expectations, playing the relationship between a mafia don and his shrink for knockabout comedy, while Children of a Lesser God turns the situation around by having its hearing-impaired character making her therapist/lover understand that by trying to teach her to speak he’s imposing his and society’s values on her alternative way of interpreting the world. That’s a significant contrast from the type of saga which positions the patient character as if they’re just there to be cured – think of Robert De Niro’s innocent soul who comes out of a years-long coma in Awakenings, for instance – where the risk is that they merely become the passive recipient of someone else’s expertise, and hence a less than compelling creation.
The King and I
David Seidler’s script for The King’s Speech hits the spot, in part at least, because it responds to both these particular posers. If the patient in question is one of the British royals, then the story does gain a valuable sense of scale (notwithstanding the fact this leaves the republicans among us understandably ideologically uneasy). The point though, is that by revealing the weighty responsibility which goes with the role’s power and prestige, we get an insight into the human dimension behind the pomp and circumstance – something which crucially bridges the cultural and historical gap between the character of the future George VI and today’s viewing commoners.
Bertie's agonising speech to the EmpireThe opening scene, for instance, is a textbook example in breaking down the audience’s prejudices against some privileged posho they could never imagine themselves giving a fig about. That Colin Firth’s Bertie has to make a speech at the Empire Exhibition in front of thousands watching and an even bigger audience listening worldwide just about turns him into jelly, as indeed it would to any of us. The guy’s not super-confident and ultra-arrogant, he’s vulnerable and human. Instantly our disdain for the blue-bloods dissolves away and we’re on Bertie’s side. If he can overcome his nerves and triumph over his stutter, then maybe we can draw vicarious confidence from that too. Once we start asking ourselves how he’s going to do that, then the writer has us exactly where he wants us.
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem
A story like this positively demands a maverick doctor, so enter Geoffrey Rush’s Lionel Logue, unconventional speech therapist, would-be thespian, and irredeemably Australian. Where the conventional approach has failed, will Lionel’s seemingly left-field methods succeed? We’re intrigued, and so his somewhat tatty basement consulting room becomes not just the scene of the action, but the location where the film’s underlying themes start to emerge. The plot’s about a patient and a doctor, but the meaning of the story is something which will reveal itself in time.
Dispensing with protocolWe get strong hints about it early on, though. Bertie and the missus (Helena Bonham Cater as the future Queen Mum) insist on protocol, but Lionel is adamant that the men stand as equals once they’re on his patch. So, it’s a question of the Prince descending to the level of commoner, or the commoner ascending to equal footing with the Prince. Either way, questions of rank are flagged up right away, with Bertie defining himself by hanging on to status, and Lionel eager to dispense with it. This not only posits the two men as opposites, but makes us wonder what needs drive them to act in this way. When Bertie finds Lionel’s initial treatment (involving reading ‘Hamlet’ into a recording microphone while loud music is playing in his ears) both bamboozling and undignified, he storms off – thus underlining a need for superiority which could jeopardise his chances of successful treatment.
It’s evident very early on then, that what’s standing between Bertie and the successful treatment of his stutter is Bertie himself – something in him needs to change before he can get on with his life. Given that one of the pitfalls of the patient/doctor-type story is that it can render the protagonist a passive figure, what this script does is make the central character’s inner self the antagonist. Hence he must defeat the old Bertie to become the new Bertie and live the life he wants. Obviously then, the dramatic manifestation of that will be whether he can accommodate himself with Lionel, and enable the therapist to work his magic. Just a question now of dotting in the dramatic points on the curve.
The rise and fall and rise and…
Guy Pierce as abdicating King Edward VIIISince it’s established fairly early on that what happens between Bertie and Lionel define the film’s plot and its meaning, the task for the writer is then to keep the viewer engrossed in their progress. Seidler, an industry veteran who wrote the auto-industry chronicle Tucker: The Man and His Dream for Francis Coppola as far back as 1988 – and, indeed, suffered from a childhood speech impediment himself, hence his long-time fascination with the subject of George VI – clearly knows what he’s doing, since the way he intensifies our involvement by alternating breakthroughs and crises in the course of the treatment is a textbook example of conventional but highly effective plot construction.
Having set up the audience’s desire to see Bertie succeed, each positive moment seems to get us and him closer to the goal, so when there’s a pitfall along the way, it only serves to intensify our desire to reach that goal. Note too, how Seidler augments that desire by increasing the stakes midway through the story, when the death of George V followed by the Edward VIII abdication crisis, puts Bertie on the throne as George VI, and the looming prospect of war thrusts an even greater burden of responsibility upon him. Just as the stakes and hence the desire move closer to the red zone the longer the story goes on, the writer’s also aware that the crises in the story also have to get tougher as it moves along. The smart move here is that having split up and then reunited Bertie and Lionel, the script lulls us into believing that the worst is now over between them – only to hit us with the shock that Lionel’s not even a real doctor. Everything could fall apart at this moment, but after listening to Logue’s impassioned defence of the therapeutic skills he made for himself by treating shell-shocked WWI casualties, it’s Bertie who ignores his handlers’ advice and decides to retain the Australian’s services – it’s a moment which turns the patient into the active agent of his own recovery, and indeed signals that by relinquishing his need to hold on to rank and status he’s vanquished the old Bertie which has been keeping him back. Bingo! It all comes together.
This is not a script which looks to re-invent the wheel, but it is a very deft piece of construction.
Let’s take a quick look at those ups and downs in full:
(i) Initial impetus: Lionel offers Bertie hope of a cure for his stutter.
(ii) Downturn: Lionel’s treatment methods seem an impertinent affront to the royal personage and Bertie storms out. A subsequent visit to his father the King reaffirms the connection between his stutter and his low self-esteem, crushed by an overbearing combination of insensitive family and the royal duties he has no choice but to perform.
(iii) Upturn: Bertie realises (thanks to the recording of him flawlessly intoning a speech from ‘Hamlet’) that Lionel really can help him, returns to his care, and is soon making progress. That Bertie turns up for a session just after the death of the King indicates his growing faith in the process. Lionel even gets him to reveal the anxieties over family duties and responsibility which are the root cause of his speech difficulties – potentially, a major step in curing his stutter.
(iv) Downturn: Bertie gets tongue-tied when he tries to confront the new King Edward VIII, over his unconstitutional plans to wed American divorcee Wallis Simpson. His newfound confidence just melts away in the heat of the moment.
(v) Upturn: Back in the consulting room, Lionel gets Bertie to vent his frustration and open up about his brother. They’re getting to the nitty-gritty now, until…
(vi) Crisis: Lionel tries to build Bertie’s confidence by suggesting he has the qualities to make a good King, but Bertie recoils, treating this as treasonous. He falls back on the inequities of status between them (‘A jumped-up jackaroo from the outback!’ he calls Lionel), and walks off. We’re not back at square one, we’re pre-square one.
(vii) Downturn: After his brother’s abdication, the Bertie realises the enormity of the challenge ahead in performing the duties of King as war in Europe looms. He’s in bits.
(viii) Upturn: Bertie makes the positive decision to return to Lionel and apologise for storming off, while the latter too makes it clear that he knows he overstepped the mark. Lionel offers Bertie a key to his condition (‘You don’t have to be afraid of things you were afraid of when you were five’) and the fact that they’re meeting at Logue’s house shows the old questions of rank have been set aside completely. The process is on again, but the coronation is getting closer.
(ix) Bigger Crisis: Bertie discovers that Lionel is not actually a doctor at all. He feels that his trust has been betrayed and his advisors want him to dispense with the Australian’s services. All this unfolds during the coronation rehearsals in Westminster Abbey, intensifying the drama.
(x) Upturn: After listening to Lionel’s defence that he never actually called himself ‘Doctor’ and that the skills he’s learned aren’t taught in medical school, Bertie makes a further positive decision to keep him on board and prepare for the throne.
The crucial speech
(xi) Resolution: As war breaks out the nation and King George VI face their sternest test. With Lionel there coaching and building confidence, the King delivers a stirring speech to an expectant country. He has fulfilled his duty flawlessly and lived up to the demands of the crown. He acknowledges Lionel as friend and equal.
Two sides of the same shilling
At which point, it ought to be said that even as we’re rooting for Bertie to win the day, it’s obvious the character of Lionel offers more than a few flamboyant party tricks for Geoffrey Rush to dispatch with his usual aplomb. The motif of the shilling (King’s head on one side, tails on the other), which is not only the small bet by which Lionel affirms can cure Bertie, but a jabbing reminder of the gap between the commoner and the royal who never carries cash, also provides a neat motif for the film’s narrative strategy – since it eventually becomes evident that the two men are opposite sides of the same coin.
Bertie, driven to paroxysms of anxiety over the demands of his regal responsibilities, must realise the key to his fears and accept his human vulnerability in order to build his confidence on a foundation of self-worth. Lionel, perhaps knowing that the front he presents to the world could be construed as a sham, over-compensates by seeking attention in amateur drama, yet by acknowledging the limits of his power and influence, can he build the trust which enables him to share the stage of world events with a real monarch. What Bertie and Lionel learn is obviously complementary, and in bridging the gap between royalty and commoner, it shows the universality of the lesson which is the film’s controlling idea:
The root of fulfilment is self-knowledge and humility.
Hints and tips
• Patient-doctor relationships can provide a useful readymade dramatic scenario. While they might offer built-in intrigue and an evident beginning-middle-end, they may also leave the writer with some work to do in ensuring the patient-protagonist isn’t rendered too passive a figure. Care need also be taken to give the story a sense of scale which broadens it out and makes its wider significance more obvious.
The King's Speech
• A story which follows someone trying to attain a better life by overcoming a psychologically-inspired impediment can be successfully dramatised if the writer casts their debilitating inner self as the story’s antagonist, thus transforming their will to change into an active force, and in the process dispelling potential misgivings about the patient’s role being too passive.
• Once a central character is in motion towards their goal, setbacks will only increase their will to achieve it and the audience’s desire to see them do it. Loading up the stakes as the story goes along can help intensify the suspense, but it’s always worth remembering that the setbacks too ought to increase in seriousness as the central character battles their way through. It’s all about maintaining tension by never allowing the audience to take a positive resolution for granted.
©Trevor Johnston/The Script Factory 2011
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