Acting is Superb but I felt like a voyeur

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2007)

Helen Mirren does a perfectly marvelous job of inhabiting the persona of Queen Elizabeth II, James Cromwell deserves much more praise than he has received for his Prince Phillip, and Michael Sheen gives a good imitation of Tony Blair. But the story of the Royal Family's stiff and unfeeling response to the death of Princess Diana surrounds documentary material about the Princess' life and death and (I'm assuming) actual scenes of the grief it produced on the part of ordinary Britons. Diana's death is at the core of this film and, though I find it hard to understand, I was repelled by that fact. Everyone knew at the time that the Royal Family was happy to be rid of this troublesome young woman, mother of a future British king, and that their late and limited response to Diana's tragic death was more or less forced on them for their own good by Tony Blair, and yet I wasn't pleased to watch it reenacted despite the acting. Still, Mirren will probably win many prizes and Cromwell should (though he probably won't). Is Prince Phillip really as much of a self-satisfied fool as he is portrayed? I think he probably is.