Caught in the Reign

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2007)

"The Queen" is all-together remarkable not only for what it is but for what it isn't.
Director Stephen Frears' film of Peter Morgan's script explores the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the summer of 1997, when Blair arrived in office and Diana, the former Princess of Wales, died in a car accident in Paris.
It imagines what life was like at Balmoral, the Royal Family's estate in Scotland, and at 10 Downing St., the Prime Minister's home and office, during that unforgettable week when seemingly all the world, and surely all of Britain, found itself in mourning for a dazzling young woman of so many striking qualities and contradictions. It takes a handful of living, non-fictional characters -- the queen, Blair, princes Philip and Charles, Blair's wife and various aides to all parties -- and attributes words, thoughts, actions and emotions to them. And it does so without ever stooping to parody, shorthand or even received wisdom. Almost everyone in the film is granted full-blooded human depth, and the result is a deeply satisfying drama.
"The Queen" is also quite funny and, at turns, moving. Frears and Morgan -- who collaborated in 2003 on "The Deal," a TV movie about Blair's Machiavellian rise to power -- have wonderful antennae for little telling details, contrasts and absurdities. They juxtapose the timid, always-on-tip-toes staff of the queen with Blair's gung-ho American-style team. They balance the grand pomp and luxury of Her Majesty's daily world with the house-full-of-kids life of the Blairs, where fish-stick dinners and crayoned walls are the norm. And they make their film really special by showing us the ways in which the queen comes to recognize Blair's talents, especially his sense of public mood, just as he finds himself praising her qualities of honor, strength and grace when his aides and wife jeer at the very thought of her.
It's a film that shows us Prince Charles crying, Elizabeth swearing, corgi dogs frolicking and the Blairs fumbling in matters of royal protocol and yet treats none of it in a campy or satiric manner. The remarkably versatile Frears ("My Beautiful Laundrette," "Dangerous Liaisons," "The Grifters," "High Fidelity," "Dirty Pretty Things") once again blends comedy, drama and something like social reportage to convince you utterly of what you're watching. The more you know about contemporary British politics, the more credible the film feels, which is a heck of a trick, but it's smashing entertainment as a story, and it's studded with memorable bits.
Most of those have to do with Helen Mirren, a splendid actress at something very near the top of her craft in the title role. From the opening credits, when she fixes the audience with a gaze that is at once open and opaque, Mirren's Elizabeth is the unhidden yet unknowable center of the film. But she is no trope or symbol. Through her diplomatic tussles with Blair, her rustic Highlands romps, her firm dealings with her frustrated son and opinionated husband, her quiet colloquies with her shrewd mother, and her gradual recognition that her stolid response to Diana's death has pained her subjects, Mirren plays an otherworldly woman in a fashion that's palpably real and human. It's a dignified, intelligent, tasteful and, most of all, living depiction. (Mirren won an Emmy this summer for playing the title character of the mini-series "Elizabeth I," and right now she's a good bet to win the Oscar in February -- a mighty big pot to win with a pair of queens.) Equally fine is Michael Sheen as Blair (reprising the role from "The Deal," in fact). There's a sense of an impression in the portrayal (Blair's manner of speech is more slippery, befitting the man), but Sheen gives us immediate access to his ambition, confidence and cunning. Members of the royal family react to Diana's death by shutting themselves up and offering neither word nor gesture to a public that was inundating the royal palaces with funereal mountains of flowers. But Blair negotiates with the queen to coax her into a more human and politically expedient posture. Watching Sheen, you're absolutely convinced that he can pull the delicate trick.
Frears presents other notable performances: Sylvia Syms as the Queen Mother, Alex Jennings as Prince Charles, Roger Allam as the queen's chief aide and Helen McCrory as Cherie Blair. The one sour note is the estimable James Cromwell, whose Prince Philip is neither written nor cast credibly, a one-note Johnny who almost always rings false.
Or, rather, he rings as you may have feared they all might. Face it: You go into "The Queen" expecting something like Kitty Kelley or "The Osbournes." But what you get is a film of nearly Shakespearean political, social and personal complexities, made with assured wit and craft. Lord knows Elizabeth will likely never see it. But it truly is worthy of a queen.