Rare insights and an emotionally rewarding film

Rating: 8/10 (18 September 2006)

Imagine for a moment you are newly elected landslide Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and your modernising beliefs don't really welcome obeisance to an outdated monarchy. Princess Diana dies, and the nation turns with venomous tooth and claw (aided perhaps by a certain spin doctor) against the Royals. A golden opportunity? But Blair feels there is something unseemly about tearing the Queen to bits and, in the middle of the crisis, kicks in some damage control.
This is the dynamic of power that bounces back and forth, aided by shrewish asides from Cherie Blair ("Off to see the girlfriend, then?") and her hilarious curtsy that manages to be respectful while still taking the p*ss. Delivering a sparkly dialogue and an especially witty battle between monarch and minister, director Stephen Frears' central accomplishment still has to be casting Helen Mirren as the Queen. No hard-line royalist, Mirren has said she thought twice before accepting her honours as a Dame of the British Empire in 2003, but her portrait here is convincingly astute, supporting a remarkable physical transformation with a sensitive characterisation that endears the Queen to us and renders her majesty's charisma all the more apparent.
In an early scene where the Queen is chatting to her portrait artist, she mentions the coming election and expresses a longing to vote, just once, for "the sheer joy of being partial." The artist reminds her that it is, after all, her government, and Queen Elizabeth retorts, "Yes, I suppose that's some consolation." Obviously there's some things money can't buy.
The film examines her character, her stoical dignity born of years of tolerance not of her choosing, and is maybe so gripping because previous portraits have been little more than a regal cipher. At the end, we feel that we have been privy to the private life of a person who, like her or not, is a feature of everyone's life in the UK. It maybe lacks the grandeur that is traditionally associated with the Queen, but is nevertheless a fairly sympathetic portrait. When Blair tells her how her ratings have dropped to an all time low, she is genuinely upset that she has failed to read her public - to whom she has devoted her life. The film, with all its light-hearted touches, maybe even assists the process of 'modernisation' that the Monarchy now believes is inevitable.
Much of the power in the performances is from unexpressed emotion. All the players are in such important positions that displays of feeling are usually taboo, publicly and sometimes privately as well. After her husband takes her grandchildren stag hunting to 'take their mind off things', the Queen is privately close to shedding a tear for the stag. A moment in the Balmoral countryside when she is alone with the creature reveals a sense of wonder in her that she cannot communicate to the human companions of her world, and she visits the body of the beast (when it is later killed by a neighbour) with more alacrity than she feels towards a dead daughter-in-law who has been her near ruin. Diana, in life, was perhaps also isolated, and we are reminded of her devotion to causes such as banning land-mines - causes to which she could unleash her emotion and, fortunately for her, to which the public could also identify.
The film evokes strong feelings - not least in bringing back the sense of national mourning that followed Diana's death (actual footage is used and the moments leading to the car crash are movingly re-created) even if this goes on to an almost sugary excess. Add to that the crisis of feelings within the Royal Family itself, the sense of isolation felt by the Queen, and the release of the film near the end of Blair's career, and you have a movie that presents a whirlwind of emotion that will thrill public tastes.