(Rolling Stone) -- It could have been a bunch of pip-pip, stiff-upper-lip Brit blather about a stuttering king who learns to stop worrying and love the microphone. Instead, "The King's Speech" -- a crowning achievement powered by a dream cast -- digs vibrant human drama out of the dry dust of history. King George VI (Colin Firth) -- father of the present Queen Elizabeth -- found his own Dr. Strangelove in Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), a wildly eccentric Australian speech therapist who made it possible for the stammering monarch to go on radio in 1939 and rally his subjects to support the declaration of war on Hitler's Germany.
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"The King's Speech" is a crowning achievement powered by a dream cast
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Writer David Seidler had first conceived the story as a play
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Colin Firth gives a towering performance that deserves a shower of awards
@placeholder treats speech lessons like therapy sessions, pushing for details about life in the royal family.