Don't Look Now but Queen Has No Clothes

Rating: 9/10 (9 November 2006)

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Given the title of the film itself: "The Queen," as well as the quote that Stephen Frears chooses to open his foray into that tricky realm of storytelling based on contemporary history: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," it is understandable that the audience may be more than a little misled as to whose story this film is really choosing to tell. Of course it is the story of Queen Elizabeth II -- brilliantly portrayed in an understated but nuanced performance by Helen Mirren -- but in truth the story is less about the Queen than it is of the true British head of state, Tony Blair, whose position as Prime Minister forces him to maintain an awkward balancing act between serving as the true constitutional ruler of Great Britain and the antiquated but, as highlighted so well in the film, not entirely symbolically servant of the monarch. It is in this awkward position that Blair begins his tenure of rule and it is the film's focus on the interplay between the two that helps to elevate "The Queen" from a simple retelling of the much documented schism between the Queen and the public at large during the week following Princess Diana's death to a prescient and insightful examination of the role that the public support plays in the daily workings of any ruler, democratically elected or not.
In "The Queen," Michael Sheen portrays Tony Blair -- in an equally as spot-on performance as Mirren -- as possessing those everyman qualities that Blair so successfully used to succeed as leader of the Labour Party. From his social awkwardness in formal situations to his insistence that his staff at 10 Downing refer to him as "Tony," Blair's scenes contrasted with those of the Queen's serve well to highlight the very real detachment between the Monarch and the people which it has inherited the right to represent and the similarities Blair shares with the people that he, on the other hand, has been chosen to represent.
It is Blair's understanding of the public, given his emergence from their ranks, as well as his awareness of the changing role of the monarch -- once as true ruler and chief voice of the nation to its present form as a symbol of the state and its people -- that leads him to realize the need for the Queen, in the midst of Diana's death, to act, as was described of Bush following 9-11, as the Mourner-in-Chief. Instead the Queen relies on monarchial protocol to guide her during those dark days, insisting that the flag at Buckingham Palace not be flown at half-mast (it wasn't flown at half-mast for her father's death) to her flippant decision not to hold a state funeral (Diana isn't even considered an HRH anymore), a choice that severely miscalculated the public need for public mourning.
As the film progresses we witness Blair cajoling the Queen, whose reluctance to follow the Prime Minister's recommendations was quickly snowballing into talk of open insurrection and calls for the monarch's abolishment, to return to London and to treat Diana's death as a royal occasion, with all the pomp and circumstances that are expected to accompany such events. In a telling sequence of events Blair is compelled to rely on the Queen's staff, whose actions are openly defiant to her wishes but are met with futile resistance, to force her to console the public with a public address and to allow for a full state funeral.
As the week progresses Blair becomes increasingly agitated at the joy others are taking, including his staff and wife, with the growing public discontent documented in evermore virulent headlines splashed across the morning dailies. His empathy and unwavering respect for the Queen confuses his wife, who accuses him at one point of "falling for her just like the rest of them." But Blair understands, better than anyone else, that those in power can make very easy targets and that it can indeed be very lonely at the top. He understands that Queens, and even Prime Ministers, in their insulated and highly scrutinized world, are like everyone else. (This fact is driven home by Frears insistence to depict both the Queen and Blair in very homely situations throughout the film: the Queen and her family crowded around the T.V. in their frumpy bathrobes, the Queen welling up at the thought of a local stag being killed by her husband, Blair sitting down with his family to a very provincial dinner in his small, unkept kitchen.) Most importantly, and at the film's core, Blair understands that a ruler's reputation is only as good as that day's headlines and that more likely than not he himself may have to suffer a similar ordeal. Blair's decision to go to Iraq and the subsequent fallout is of course the elephant in the theater that emerges during every scene where Blair is defending the Queen and falling over himself to mend her mistakes. Watching the film the audience can't help analogizing the two situations and wondering how such a skilled and crafty politician, who so successfully brought a nation together and single-handedly helped to preserve the longest lasting monarchy in the Western Hemisphere during that fateful week, could have so greatly miscalculated the public reaction that going to war would cause and the consequences of his decision. As occurred to the Queen, Blair's public detachment and aloofness created a lethal combination for someone whose power is so directly controlled by the will of the people. What makes it so amazing is that Blair knew this fact all too well. Which makes me wonder if not another Shakespeare quote may have been more fitting to begin the film: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves." For Blair this was only all too true.