Movies We Like
The Queen
Dir: Stephen Frears, 2006. Starring: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell. Drama.
Playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan has become one of the top chroniclers of odd-couple conflicts just below the surface of history's reach during the last couple decades. The Last King of Scotland was about the relationship between Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and his young Scottish doctor. Frost/Nixon chronicled the details of the famous filmed conversations between the broadcaster and the disgraced ex-president. Morgan's television movie, The Deal, directed by Stephen Frears, contrasted the difference between two British politicians, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. As a follow-up, Morgan, Frears, and actor Michael Sheen, who perfectly captures Blair in looks and spirit, re-teamed with The Queen. This time Blair is a supporting character on screen, though still a vital half of another mismatched odd couple with Queen Elizabeth II, played brilliantly by Helen Mirren. The Queen details how Blair just might have saved the royal family from total irrelevancy after their reluctance to acknowledge Princess Diana after her death.
After the humiliating divorce between Prince Charles and Princess Diana, England’s monarchy might need to ask itself some hard questions, but Queen Elizabeth won't have it. When the touchy-feely Tony Blair, England’s answer to Bill Clinton, was elected Prime Minister in 1997 with promises to modernize the country, it sent shivers up the spines of the royal family. A few months after getting elected and an awkward first meeting with the Queen, they are both at the center of a storm when Diana and her playboy boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, are tragically killed in a Paris car accident. The royal family have no idea how to react. The Queen resorts to her WWII “stiff upper lip” posture: say nothing, show no emotion, and just stay out of the public eye. Tradition! Diana was no longer part of the royal family, so it was not her concern. But Blair understood the modern sensibility of public mourning and after dubbing her “the People’s Princess” his numbers skyrocket while the Queen’s coldness sinks her.
Though the meek Prince Charles (Alex Jennings) is eager for the Monarchy to change their stance towards the now dead mother of his children, he has no say over his mother, his father, Prince Philip (James Cromwell), and the batty old Queen Mum (Sylvia Syms). Blair deals with his own family conflicts; like much of England, his wife Cherie (Helen McCrory) has nothing but disdain for the fussy Queen and her family who seemed to be trapped in another time. As Blair rises he comes to respect the Queen and even admire her strength and dignity. As the public’s outpouring of love for Diana swells, Blair does everything he can do to drag the Queen onto the same page as the public. It becomes a battle of wills between the wily politician and the stoic Queen (and her even grouchier husband). The Queen cannot understand the outpouring of affection for Diana’s memory - in the royal family’s eyes she was just a camera-loving showboater - and she believes this grief will eventually ebb. It doesn’t, and the longer she ignores it the more distant she gets from her “subjects.”
Perfectly combining actors and actual new footage (mostly of Diana and the public’s reaction to her death), Frears takes the TV-Movie format and zaps it up to an eleven, with such outstanding performances all around that it could never be confused with a Lifetime television movie. Mirren has been one of the most dependable actresses for decades, with a career spanning all the way back to the '60s, usually playing sexy early, with ample nudity (Age Of Consent, Caligula, Excalibur, etc.). By the '80s she went back and forth between American and British flicks, mainstream and independent, really making a name a name for herself in films ranging from The Mosquito Coast to The Cook The Thief His Wife And Her Lover. But it was her British TV series Prime Suspect that made her a real critic's darling and she was finally acknowledged as one of her generation's best (her Oscar-winning performance in The Queen officially makes her a future hall-of famer).
The Queen is a film Shakespeare would have written if he were still alive and, well, a screenwriter. It’s full of backstage political intrigue and two people walking a high wire, but instead of life and death, it's about the simple choice between leading the public and the press or being led by them. The Queen is a real three-dimensional human being, bopping around her vacation grounds in her Range Rover with her dogs, proud of the fact that she’s independent from her own family. But her entire existence depends on being respected by her people and now she may be too aloof from her own country. Like Frears' earlier great film Dangerous Liaisons, it’s a game of chess among people who should be playing checkers. Instead of pre- Napoleonic era French court it’s the 24-hour news age, an era the Queen may not yet know how to negotiate. Ironically, almost fifteen years later, Blair finally left office in disgrace (deemed Bush’s flunky in the Iraq war), Diana is a memory, Charles is remarried and the Queen is still there, still ruling over her royal subjects.
____________________________
The Queen won one Oscar for Best Actress (Helen Mirren). It was nominated for an additional five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Costumes, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Score.
After the humiliating divorce between Prince Charles and Princess Diana, England’s monarchy might need to ask itself some hard questions, but Queen Elizabeth won't have it. When the touchy-feely Tony Blair, England’s answer to Bill Clinton, was elected Prime Minister in 1997 with promises to modernize the country, it sent shivers up the spines of the royal family. A few months after getting elected and an awkward first meeting with the Queen, they are both at the center of a storm when Diana and her playboy boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, are tragically killed in a Paris car accident. The royal family have no idea how to react. The Queen resorts to her WWII “stiff upper lip” posture: say nothing, show no emotion, and just stay out of the public eye. Tradition! Diana was no longer part of the royal family, so it was not her concern. But Blair understood the modern sensibility of public mourning and after dubbing her “the People’s Princess” his numbers skyrocket while the Queen’s coldness sinks her.
Though the meek Prince Charles (Alex Jennings) is eager for the Monarchy to change their stance towards the now dead mother of his children, he has no say over his mother, his father, Prince Philip (James Cromwell), and the batty old Queen Mum (Sylvia Syms). Blair deals with his own family conflicts; like much of England, his wife Cherie (Helen McCrory) has nothing but disdain for the fussy Queen and her family who seemed to be trapped in another time. As Blair rises he comes to respect the Queen and even admire her strength and dignity. As the public’s outpouring of love for Diana swells, Blair does everything he can do to drag the Queen onto the same page as the public. It becomes a battle of wills between the wily politician and the stoic Queen (and her even grouchier husband). The Queen cannot understand the outpouring of affection for Diana’s memory - in the royal family’s eyes she was just a camera-loving showboater - and she believes this grief will eventually ebb. It doesn’t, and the longer she ignores it the more distant she gets from her “subjects.”
Perfectly combining actors and actual new footage (mostly of Diana and the public’s reaction to her death), Frears takes the TV-Movie format and zaps it up to an eleven, with such outstanding performances all around that it could never be confused with a Lifetime television movie. Mirren has been one of the most dependable actresses for decades, with a career spanning all the way back to the '60s, usually playing sexy early, with ample nudity (Age Of Consent, Caligula, Excalibur, etc.). By the '80s she went back and forth between American and British flicks, mainstream and independent, really making a name a name for herself in films ranging from The Mosquito Coast to The Cook The Thief His Wife And Her Lover. But it was her British TV series Prime Suspect that made her a real critic's darling and she was finally acknowledged as one of her generation's best (her Oscar-winning performance in The Queen officially makes her a future hall-of famer).
The Queen is a film Shakespeare would have written if he were still alive and, well, a screenwriter. It’s full of backstage political intrigue and two people walking a high wire, but instead of life and death, it's about the simple choice between leading the public and the press or being led by them. The Queen is a real three-dimensional human being, bopping around her vacation grounds in her Range Rover with her dogs, proud of the fact that she’s independent from her own family. But her entire existence depends on being respected by her people and now she may be too aloof from her own country. Like Frears' earlier great film Dangerous Liaisons, it’s a game of chess among people who should be playing checkers. Instead of pre- Napoleonic era French court it’s the 24-hour news age, an era the Queen may not yet know how to negotiate. Ironically, almost fifteen years later, Blair finally left office in disgrace (deemed Bush’s flunky in the Iraq war), Diana is a memory, Charles is remarried and the Queen is still there, still ruling over her royal subjects.
____________________________
The Queen won one Oscar for Best Actress (Helen Mirren). It was nominated for an additional five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Costumes, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Score.
Posted by:
Sean Sweeney
Jan 4, 2012 6:45pm
