Tears for a beloved princess and an all-too-human queen

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2007)

The Queen is riveting. It is no simple film, but rather an absolutely fascinating glimpse behind closed doors: the massive closed doors shielding the British Royal Family in their opulent cocoon, the rather more plain doors of the media-driven British government and its movers and shakers, and the doors too often hiding or protecting all of us from the pain of real feelings, real emotions. But then these doors come tumbling down during that awful, shocking week, as visceral now as it was 10 years ago. The political manoeuvrings, the confusion about how to handle such an extraordinary public and private tragedy in the midst of an astonishing, but not necessarily surprising outpouring of national, indeed international grief is shown with razor sharp brilliance. It is a movie that is simply unforgettable. One can view the film from an historical perspective, and be completely intrigued at the way the events unfolded. But what makes the film so powerful are the emotions that one experiences. We remember the sadness of that week, and we get teary-eyed seeing the collective grief of the country one more time on the television screen. That beautiful, complex, extraordinary Diana - without realizing it was part of our dreams of "happily ever after". When there was no "happily ever after" - just the awesome finality of death, we cried - for her and also for ourselves. But in an amazing portrayal of the Queen in this movie, we now look at that week through Her eyes - not Diana's, not ours. Helen Mirren's performance is so unique, so exquisite, that we can't believe she's acting. She is a real person - regal, beautiful, elegant, down-to-earth, eccentric - a full human being. But as the turn of events unfold, her pain now becomes our pain - a pain that we didn't even realize was there. But of course it had to have been there! This movie makes us see that. When she almost becomes a little girl again, and calls out "Mummy" to the Queen Mother, seeking out her advice, desperate to be comforted, our hearts break. She is even more vulnerable than one could ever have imagined. At the end of the movie, everyone has been transformed - those historical characters are moving on as both duty and the human spirit dictates it must, but we have been transformed as well. We have cried all over again, but this time with a little more insight, a little more understanding and a little more wisdom.