I'm actually glad I didn't watch the trailer, because not only would it have spoiled the ending for me (my English history is spotty), it would have been misleading. Colin Firth isn't the king at first -- he plays Prince Albert, the Duke of York, and his father King George V (Albus Dumbledore Michael Gambon) is still alive and quite overbearing when the movie begins. Albert's older brother Edward (Guy Pearce) is next in line to the throne, and while there's a chance he may be ineligible if he continues his relationship with a twice-married American, mainly Albert just wants his speech impediment cured, after decades of embarrassment and torment. Yeah -- the Duke of York had it pretty rough as a kid, if you can believe it. Remind me never to be royalty and have knock-knees. Also, suck up to the nanny.

His wife Elizabeth, the future Queen Mum (the restrainedly charming Bellatrix LeStrange Helena Bonham Carter), enlists a series of therapists to help her husband, but none seem to work until she finds an Australian expatriate named Lionel Logue (Captain Barbossa Geoffrey Rush) with unorthodox but highly effective methods. After a bit of antagonism between the pair, Lionel and "Bertie" grow to respect one another, and even get a montage, in which Firth does everything but punch a side of beef. But as the family drama progresses, as do political complications with Germany, the stakes become higher, and Albert must deal with the fears that keep him from speaking clearly, mostly having to do with being part of the world's most famously messed-up family. The American trailer is a little ham-fisted with the emotional breakthrough and climactic speech that wrap up the film, but the climax of the film itself is actually incredibly moving, and has you on tenterhooks with each lengthy pause in his delivery.

Director Tom Hooper (The Damned United) successfully walks the line between the dramatic and the comedic in the script by David Seidler (Tucker), and gets great performances from an immensely talented cast. Firth is, frankly, amazing, and the combination of his dramatic triumphant performance with his audible handicap is the stuff Oscar nominations are made of, so I expect to see him score a second nomination this year, and even a win would not be out of the question. Rush is surely a lock for a Supporting Actor nod, but I'd say he deserved Best Actor if Firth weren't right there. (Besides, he's already got one of those.) Carter's supporting role is unspectacular, but funny and refreshingly pleasant, and Wormtail Timothy Spall steals the scene every time he shows up as a froglike Winston Churchill.

If you haven't seen the trailer for this movie yet, don't -- just go see the film. The trailer chops and edits and makes the movie look like an Oscar-baiting cliche, and not the Oscar-worthy film it actually is.

Did you see The King's Speech? Let us know what you thought below, then check out our guide to the end-of-the-year movies. And read more movie reviews here!

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