Harsh but Compassionate Portrait of Queen Elizabeth

Rating: 8/10 (9 December 2014)

This is an unusual movie, because I have "known" the main characters Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Prince Charles all my life. I have not actually met them, but I have been in their presence and of course seen them in the media, starting with Movietone newsreels as a toddler. They have often appeared as characters in my dreams, as casual acquaintances of mine. Similarly, I have a strong feeling about what Tony Blair is like. Princess Diana, and her brother "play" themselves. The adoring and grieving crowds "play" themselves from old newsreel footage.
The movie is about times surrounding Princess Di's death. It is about the contrast between private and public lives. It shows you how royal and public lives are orchestrated by others. The Queen and Blair don't even write their own speeches. Like skilled actors, they recite them off teleprompters with artificial sincerity.
I remember Di's funeral, listening on the radio in my Quadra Island cabin in the woods, hearing the hooves of the horses in the funeral procession and the hush of a large crowd. I had no idea how large those crowds were or how upset everyone was, or how garish it all was, reminiscent of those balloon and teddy bear shrines at accident sites. To my ears then, the funeral seemed more a dignified occasion of state, something that should be accompanied by Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary.
I was quite surprised at how unsympathetic a portrait the movie portrayed of the royal family. I did not expect something so harsh while the principals were all still alive. Even though the queen was portrayed as ice cold, dripping irony, you understood this was the way she was ruthlessly trained all her life. The only thing that matters to her is decorum, precedent and protocol. She is stuck in her stiff upper lip WWII role.
I tried several times in the movie to see Helen Mirren as she was in Prime Suspect beneath the makeup. I could not. She WAS the queen.
The extreme deference people show the queen, (e.g. backing out of rooms where she is present and bowing), and her fabulous wealth in lands I did not appreciate until I saw this movie, nor her intense sense of entitlement simply because she held the office of queen.
I agree with Tony Blair's wife. The monarchy is a archaic institution. It needs to be abolished. It is both unfair to force anyone to play this rigid role for a lifetime, and to give such extreme privilege to anyone based on an accident of birth. We should elect celebrities to play such ceremonial roles for limited terms.