A New Spin on the Historical Drama

It's no secret that Britain has pumped out its fair share of historical dramas. That's why director Tom Hooper knew that he would have to pull out some clever director techniques to really make The King's Speech into something no one had seen before. For starters, he made sure to use hard lighting to create harsh images with sharp shadows, which helps make the film seem less sentimental than you might expect from such a feel-good story.

Hooper also loves to put his characters out of the center of the screen to keep his viewers off balance. After all, a movie like this one could very easily turn into something so soft and sugary sweet that it would rot your teeth out. That's why Hooper needed to do everything he could to remind us of the pain and difficulty that King George VI would have had to live with because of his stutter.

Finally, Hooper is amazing at using silence to get our attention in this movie. Just go to the scene in Westminster Abbey where Logue tells the story of how he first became a speech therapist. You can almost hear the deafening echoes of Westminster Abbey at this moment, which gives the whole movie a sense of depth and importance.