An Extraordinary Portrait

Rating: 10/10 (5 November 2006)

Probably no institution is as revered, reviled, dysfunctional and unique as the British Royal Family. In this extremely personal and focused look at a famously private yet globally exposed monarch, director Frears and actor Mirren achieve the near impossible. How can such a hermetically sealed personality be shown in depth? By the end of the film, one actually comes away feeling as if one knows this virtually unknowable family, and most impressively, the title character.
The tension and drama of the film arise from the isolated period it portrays, which demonstrates in microcosm the flaws, failures and ultimate devotion to duty of the British monarchy. Frears closely examines the seemingly frozen Queen Elizabeth and family during a period of huge public trauma, the death of Princess Diana. The unprecedented emotional gulf between titular ruler and her people (without overemphasizing the point, the film makes clear that the Royals play a merely ceremonial role in the actual governance of the country) at first is laughable, even shocking. The coldness of this family, its brittle stiff upper lip, the lack of communication, the aversion not only to public but any private display of warmth, is stereotypically British taken to the furthest extreme. Yet on this occasion, Elizabeth (and her comically obtuse consort, brilliantly played by James Cromwell) have totally failed to anticipate -- or even acknowledge, once it becomes painfully obvious -- the uncharacteristic bathos of grief that swept not only Britain, but the world, at Diana's sudden death. (In fairness, I don't know that anyone could have predicted the global sense of deep loss at that time -- I was amazed at my own tears and pain.)
The schism, far from being a mere difference in emotional temperature, turns into a threat to the very institution of the monarchy itself. The film's humanity turns on the point when Elizabeth makes a tortured choice, torn between upbringing and temperament on the one hand, and on the other, the need for a change, out of duty to the nation and the continued existence of a royal family. The art of this movie is that even though the correct path to take would seem natural to anyone else, we understand why it is such a wrenching, even terrifying move to one raised to revere precedence and dignity not for their own sake, but the sake of the nation and over 1000 years of history. Against my will, I admired this woman by the end of the film (just don't ask me to marry her son!).
The magic is all done with great subtlety. It works so well because Frears keeps a literal tight focus on the faces of the small and excellent cast through most of the film, intercut with actual news footage of the time showing greater and greater throngs of mourners. This heightens the sense of separation between the monarch and the public, whom she experiences exclusively via the television. The royal world is very small, claustrophobic, while the shots of the grieving crowd (only seen in grainy distance shots on television)eventually rival the famous shot from "Gone With The Wind" of the panorama of wounded soldiers stretching to the far horizon.
Helen Mirren's accomplishment cannot be praised enough. Somehow this attractive woman actually becomes the physical embodiment of the famously dowdy Elizabeth (albiet an Elizabeth on a very good day), and says more in a raised eyebrow, a sidelong glance, than the terse monarch would even dream of saying aloud. We also get to see tiny glimpses of what she would never willingly reveal: a woman capable of deep feeling, frustration, even helplessness.
The remainder of the cast is just as spot-on. The movie would never work without superlative performers, and fortunately everyone, from the queen's long-suffering personal secretary, to the newly-elected Tony Blair and his very modern wife, to the most lowly gamesmen at Balmoral Castle, is not merely believable but also fully-developed.
This is not just a film for tabloid readers of slavish followers of Things Royal. This is a fascinating character study set at a time still very fresh and evocative in the public memory, and thoroughly absorbing.
Highest recommendations for Her Highness, "The Queen."