Combining cinema’s most overdone (British monarchy melodrama) and least done (speech therapy) elements, screenwriter David Seidler drew from his own struggles with stammering to re-imagine the details of the true circumstances behind King George VI’s (Colin Firth) speaking handicap. George--nicknamed “Bertie”--never expected or hoped to inherit his father’s throne, but after his older brother Edward (Guy Pearce) abdicates, he’s faced with the crown, as well as the increasingly threatening advance of a Germany led by Adolf Hitler, whose fiery speeches inspire the sinister unification of his people. It may be a predictable triumph-of-the-human-spirit vehicle, but sometimes experimental isn’t on the table. by Marjorie Skinner