The Stag at Eve

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2006)

In this wonderful film, director Stephen Frears uses a beautiful 14 point buck roaming the Scottish highlands as a metaphor for Queen Elizabeth II's troubles caused by her cold reaction to the death of her former daughter in law, Diana. The buck in "The Queen" died but Elizabeth, like Sir Walter Scott's famous "Stag at eve," certainly did not.
The film examines how the new Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the queen work out the queen's initial refusal to publicly acknowledge Diana's death in any way. It's a great story well told by Frears' ("High Fidelity." "The Grifters"). The screenplay, by Peter Morgan, and the acting by an ensemble case of mostly British actors were laudable. The brilliant Helen Mirren was at the top of her game here, producing a picture of a woman who was both cold and imperious, out of her depth and deeply afraid, and most important of all, sympathetic.
Following her divorce from Prince Charles, Diana, the former Princess of Wales, went public with many embarrassing tales out of school about her marriage to Charles. Her conduct permanently alienated her from the royal family. But because of her beauty charisma, and media savvy Diana succeeded in portraying herself as an innocent victim, not a manipulative malcontent.
When Diana tragically died in a Paris automobile accident at the age of 37, the outpouring of grief was remarkable, although it should not have been. All one had to do was look at the identical reaction to the death of former Beatle John Lennon in 1980. Although such outpourings of grief are a mile wide and an inch deep, the Queen should have known better that to ignore her people's remorse at Princess Di's untimely end. The Queen, like so many other public figures since learned the perils of the 24 hour news cycle.
"The Queen" is a brilliant character study played by an equally brilliant character actress. From her tightly permed head to her slightly thickening ankles and sensible shoes, Mirren was Elizabeth II. Although she should have known better than to try to avoid addressing Diana's death, in her defense she was getting a lot of bad advice from within her palace, notably by a boneheaded, priggish Prince Phillip, played by the always wonderful James Cromwell. But Elizabeth had the wit to listen to her Prime Minister, a political genius if ever there was one, and take the right actions and say the right things to rehabilitate her reputation.
Highly recommended and not to be missed. 9 out of 10.