Test review

Genre: Period/Biopic
Premise: On the precipice of World War 2, the son of King George V, who has an embarrassing speech impediment, is tasked with giving the most important speech of the century.
About: The King’s Speech just won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival. The film stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Botham Carter. For those of you writers getting long in the tooth and afraid that Hollywood ageism is conspiring against you, David Seidler, the writer of The King’s Speech, is 73 years old and just signed with UTA! Talk about putting in the work, huh? This script should prove to many that your best work is usually your most personal. Seidler had a terrible stuttering problem when he was growing up and was inspired by Bertie’s (King George VI) story. He’s been trying to get the film made for over 20 years. The script was finally made because it got into the hands of Tom Hooper’s parents (the director). They gave it to their son, who was shooting John Adams for HBO. He showed up at Seidler’s door, waving the script, calling it the best script he’d ever read in his life. In classic Hollywood fashion, they then proceeded to write 50 more drafts!
Writer: David Seidler
Details: 115 pages – Sept. 17, 2008 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I remember last year around this time when An Education debuted and people were talking about it as an Oscar contender. I didn’t see anything Oscar-contention-worthy about the script to be honest, and while I know a lot of people liked it, I wasn’t surprised that it disapparead off the radar almost immediately. I still don’t know why you’d make a movie about an inappropriate relationship where nobody in the movie cares that the relationship is innapropriate. But alas, I’m not here to complain about An Education.

I’m here to look for some weightier work. Last week’s half-hearted attempts at screenwriting left me cold so when I heard that, once again, companies were marching out their Oscar contenders, I perked up. You figure, at the very least, the scripts have to be decent, and this is what led me to The King’s Speech, the movie that came out of Toronto with the most attention.

I’m by no means an expert on British royalty so you’ll have to excuse me if I get some of the facts wrong. The King’s Speech is about Albert, The Duke of York, the second son of King George V, known to his closest family members as “Bertie.” It’s the 1930s and some lunatic named Hitler in Germany is wreaking all sorts of havoc in Europe. With King George on his last legs, a new king will have to reign soon, and that king’s voice will be one of the most important voices in the world, as it will convey to every country what Britain’s stance is on this dictator.

Enter Bertie, who has a collosol stuttering problem, so much so that his own wife, Elizabeth, is embarrassed by him. Lucky for Bertie, his older brother David, the Prince of Wales, will be taking over the throne. David is a media darling and extremely popular, however he also falls in love with a common woman, and is therefore scandeled out of the throne, forcing Bertie into the role that terrifies him the most: King.

You see during this time, radio was becoming huge. Think like 3-D times a thousand. And the King is going to need to make the most important speech, maybe in history. Which sucks because Bertie can’t speak!

So terrible is his problem that his wife actually goes out and seeks a commoner speech therapist who is said to have a good reputation, a man named Lionel Logue. Lionel is of course brash, unconventional, and innapropriate, like a 1930s Mr. Miagi. Bertie hates him immediately. But after their first session, he realizes that the man can indeed help him.

This is where the script really hits its stride, in these two trying to work together. Lionel is such a great character, I was wondering who they got to play him. When I saw it was Geoffrey Rush, I realized that this movie could be seriously awesome. The pitch-perfect conflict between the two, one steeped in convention and properness, the other completely disrespectful to all authority, was great. And I liked how they gave Lionel a story of his own – as a failed actor on his last legs, forcing his family into the city to pursue his dream, all when they’d be much happier out in the country.

Unfortuantely, for some reason, the script deviates from this format in the later second act and starts getting into the politics behind Bertie’s rise in the family and his brother’s fall. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t nearly as interesting as the scenes with Lionel. As the third act approaches, Lionel returns, and the story builds to its dramatic conclusion.

While it could be characterised as a hoighty-toity period piece, The King’s Speech is actually one of the most classic stories there is. Man has problem. Man needs to fix problem. In that sense, it’s not that different in structure from a script like Bad Teacher, the Cameron Diaz comedy coming out next year. Everything’s just bigger. You have a main character with a singular goal: Overcome his speech impediment before the most important speech of his life. The stakes are extremely high (possibly the freedom of the new world), there’s a natural ticking time bomb (the speech), and with our goal being so clear, we always know where we’re going. It’s storytelling at its simplest.

On top of that, the main character is extremely sympathetic. He’s an underdog! And as I’ve pointed out before, there’s no character we root more for than an underdog. This rather simple structural approach is what’s made the movie such a crowd pleaser.

With storylines are this straightforward, the biggest choice the writer has to make is how many and how complex he wants his subplots to be. This is a critical decision. If your subplots are too few or too thin, the storyline feels empty. If you push for too many and make them too complex, they can create deep chasms of screenplay real estate that feel bloated and uninteresting. This is what I was referring to above. When we move away from Lionel and start concerning ourselves with the brother too much, the story loses its way. The brother’s scandalous affair with a common woman doesn’t fit into the theme of the movie so naturally it’s going to feel unnecessary.

Also of note is the dialogue in this script, specifically between Bertie and Lionel. Once again, it proves that the SITUATION is more important in writing dialogue than any attempt to write great dialogue out of a vaccuum. The reason their scenes are so good is because of all the work that went into the characters beforehand. Bertie is stringent uptight man who demands respect. Lionel is a frustrated selfish man who has no respect for anyone. Before they’ve even said a word, you know their dialogue is going to be great.

To me, this script had a shot from the second I read the logline. Like all good loglines, look at how the irony is inherent right there for all of us to see. A man who can’t speak is tasked with the biggest speech ever! Who isn’t interested in that.

I really wish the script hadn’t lost its way in that second act, as I probably would’ve given it a higher rating. Still, this was an enjoyable script and I’m not surprised it’s playing so well to audiences.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Failed period pieces often tend to try and cover too much territory. It’s as if the writer feels as if he/she must live up to the weightiness of the material by exploring as much of the period as possible. Instead, consider telling a simple yet powerful story that any audience can relate to, like The King’s Speech.

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