The Queen (2006)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Diana the 'People's Princess' has died in a car accident in Paris. The Queen and her family decide that for the best, they should remain hidden behind the closed doors of Balmoral Castle. The heartbroken public do not understand and request that the Queen comforts her people. This also puts pressure on newly elected Tony Blair, who constantly tries to convince the monarchy to address the public. The Queen boasts a terrific cast but that ain't enough when the movie is broken and just painfully silly and really really boring to so many different places. (0/10)

The film plots the response of the British royal family to the death of Princess Diana in a car accident in 1997. Tension focuses on the idea that, in contrast to the general public, the Royals didn't much care for Diana. In one scene, Prime Minister Blair (Michael Sheen), in tune with the public's mood, talks on the phone with the Queen; they're discussing how the monarchy should respond to Diana's death. After a tense and difficult conversation, Blair concludes by saying: "let's keep in touch". To which the Queen, in an icy voice, responds curtly: "Yes, let's", then hangs up. "The Queen" is a good movie.In the film, the Queen (Helen Mirren) comes across as dignified, disciplined, confident, unemotional but brooding, perceptive, stoic, and fond of protocol and tradition. Blair comes across as informal, perceptive, jovial, and easy to relate to. Differences in their personalities are blatant and obvious.In addition to a delicate script that zips along at a good clip, the film's production design is terrific. Though palace interiors are probably tacky in comparison to what the real British palaces must look like, the film crew does a fine job with the budget they had to work with. Ditto the credible costumes. Cinematography is fine. Casting is ideal.A couple of concerns keep the film from being really great. There's a bit too much screen time spent on the "stag" hunt in the North. And in those scenes, I wouldn't have thought that the Queen actually drives a car herself, or wears a scarf. And second, and more important, you get the feeling that the film was made in direct response to the death of Diana; otherwise, the film would never have been made. If that's true, then it's Diana who is the real story here, and the title is thus a tad disingenuous.Despite my problem with the film's reason for being, "The Queen" is a fascinating drama. Helen Mirren's understated performance is wonderful, and boosts the overall quality tremendously. It's a film well worth watching.

What I'd like to know is what really, really went on behind the closed doors of Buckingham Castle following the death of Princess Diana. I think the movie probably got a lot of it right. If one followed the history of Diana and her fairy tale wedding to Prince Charles, then you surely were aware of the aftermath when the marriage fell apart and the 'former' Princess took on humanitarian causes and quite inadvertently embarrassed the Royal Family with her post-marital associations. The positive reviewers for this film found a nobility in Queen Elizabeth's (Helen Mirren) attempt to stay above the public fray during the week following Diana's death, but for others, like myself, I can't imagine how she and the rest of The Royals so misjudged the public mood with their tone deaf response. All of this is brought forth successfully by the picture, as well as the ameliorating effect the new Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) had on Elizabeth after a number of head butts against a wall of Royal bashers. Of course, the press took to their usual voyeuristic initiative to paint a grim picture of the Royal Family, eventually leading to some acquiescence on the part of The Queen. In her role, Helen Mirren is quite extraordinary, quite deserving of the 2007 Best Actress recognition, though I question whether the film makers selected a proper title for this film. In many respects, it plays more like 'The Queen's Tantrum'.

This movie gives us a look at what things might have been like at the time when Lady Di was killed in a car accident in Paris. Helen Mirren gives an excellent portrayal of Queen Elizabeth. She is so convincing as the queen that one soon is able to easily suspend any disbelief that she is NOT the queen. Helen Mirren--whom I have enjoyed since her Shakespeare work in the late 60s early 70s---won a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar for this role.Another 'dead on' performance is that of Michael Sheen as Tony Blair. The movie starts with the moment when Blair first had his first awkward audience with the queen. It then skips forward to the time when Diana was killed. As the royal family vacations in Scotland, Blair's problem is how to convince the queen that she must return to London to acknowledge the grief of the people and finally have a large public funeral rather than a small private one. This is a case of the royal family not knowing HOW to react under such unusual circumstances. Blair, plus public sentiment, helps her to realize what should be done.