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| Queen, The |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 97 |
| Public Rating: 8.69 (13 votes) |
Director: Stephen Frears |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama/Biography |
Year: 2006 |
| Writer(s): Peter Morgan |
| Distributor: Miramax Films |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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Directed by Stephen Frears (Mrs. Henderson Presents, Dirty Pretty Things, High Fidelity, The Snapper, The Grifters) and written by Peter Morgan (The Last King of Scotland), The Queen explores the relationship between the Queen Elizabeth II and Tony over the course of a summer in 1997, the same summer in which Princess Diana, Prince Charles' ex-wife, died in a tragic car accident in Paris. As the leader of the Labour Party that had just won via a landslide, Blair wrested control of the British government from John Majors, Margaret Thatcher's successor as the leader of the Tory Party. The youthful Blair and his government promised institutional reform and “modernization.”
May 1997, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), arrives at Buckingham Palace with his wife, Cherie (Helen McCrory) to receive official recognition from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren). Uneasy at first with the ritualized protocol for greeting and meeting the queen, Blair humbly accepts a comparison to the legendary Winston Churchill. Just as Blair begins to deliver key speeches about his plans to modernize British institutions and accelerate the move toward a meritocracy, Princess Diana dies in a car accident in Paris, fleeing paparazzi eager to photograph her for the national tabloids. The British nation goes into an extended period of public mourning, leaving flowers in front of Buckingham Palace. Blair delivers a well-received speech where he calls Diana the "People's Princess."
The royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip (James Cromwell), the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles (Alex Jennings, and the Queen Mother (Sylvia Syms), retreat to the family's vacation estate, Balmoral, Scotland. Of course, the queen's retinue comes along, headed up by the queen's personal secretary, Robin Janvrin (Roger Allam). Given the bitter acrimony that divided Princess Diana from the royal family, her public divorce from Prince Charles (and his public affair with Camilla Bowles-Parker), and her high-profile, jet-set lifestyle, the queen had little affection for Princess Diana. Following protocol that emphasizes private observance over public ceremony, the queen and the royal family find themselves paralyzed, uncertain on how to respond. With an eye toward public perceptions and his future as a British monarch, Prince Charles suggests a public display of grief.
After almost a week, Queen Elizabeth returns to Buckingham Palace, setting the stage for public contrition and the recognition those centuries-old protocols no longer apply in a media-centric, celebrity-obsessed culture. As presented in The Queen, Queen Elizabeth's timely return and public address helped restore the British public's confidence in the monarchy. Blair's assistants quote polls which suggest that 25% of the public wants to abolish the monarchy. It's not quite the dramatic tipping point Stephen Frears and his screenwriter, Peter Morgan (The Last King of Scotland) would have us believe, but The Queen is less about a hyped constitutional crisis than a carefully modulated study of the very real constraints that guide and constrict the British monarch's actions.
The queen's life is so well regulated, so structured, that she has little time for herself. While the constraints on a monarch's life might not engender sympathy among American moviegoers for whom the idea of a constitutional, hereditary monarchy seems like something from an anthropology course or a not particularly relevant historical novel, the specifics here might, in no part due to Helen Mirren's meticulously measured portrayal of a woman constrained by tradition, protocol, and a lifetime of “playacting” the role of monarch, a life bereft of spontaneity. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Queen Elizabeth's public persona only breaks down during an unstructured, unexpected moment on her estate. As such, it's the obligatory “royals-are-human-too” scene, but thanks to Mirren's performance it doesn't come off as cheap or manipulative.
Interestingly, Tony Blair comes across as warmly genuine and compassionate, recognizing quickly the queen's limited ability to change according to circumstances. Living modestly in cramped quarters with his wife and three children (they don't have a separate dining room, eating their meals in the kitchen) is obviously meant to show Blair as a man of limited means and humble origins. This interpretation, of course, leaves Morgan and Frears open to accusations that they're apologists for Queen Elizabeth II (and everything she stands for) and Tony Blair, whose political reputation has suffered due to the ill-fated decision to join the United States in invading and occupying Iraq.
All that may be true (to be fair, Blair's accomplishments as prime minister are, for the time being, overshadowed by Iraq), but only in part. Frears and Morgan balance their sympathetic portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair with Prince Philip, a simple-minded, superficial, dispassionate man who's constructed a comfortable life around hunting, and Prince Charles, first presented sympathetically (despite a bitter, public divorce, he flies to Paris to recover Princess Diana's body then mourns her loss) then less so, as his desire to give Princess Diana a public funeral reveals a cunning, calculated nature that also seems to hide a streak of cowardice.
Given the subject matter, The Queen is likely to attract only a small subset of moviegoers, Anglophiles or Helen Mirren's fans. It's too bad, though, since the larger subset of moviegoers interested in literate, insightful drama would find much to like here (well, with the exception of an unnecessary scene where an overwrought Blair defends the queen's honor to a callous member of his staff). Then again, Mirren may just get an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress next spring. If that happens, that's all to the good, since a Mirren nomination will give The Queen broader exposure among casual film fans.
© Mel Valentin, 13th October, 2006
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