an audience with Her Majesty

Rating: 9/10 (27 January 2007)

"The Queen" provides us with a fascinating glimpse into the heart of a royal - or, in the case of Queen Elizabeth II, quite possibly the void where that heart ought to be.
The movie takes place in the weeks following the death of the beloved Princess Diana on August 30, 1997 (Diana had just recently gotten divorced from Prince Charles, so technically, she was no longer a part of the royal family). It was during this period of intense national mourning that the Queen demonstrated that she had a tin ear when it came to gauging the mood and feelings of her subjects. For many days, as the grieving multitudes gathered outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, weeping uncontrollably and laying down a veritable sea of flowers in the Princess' memory, the Royals remained holed up on a country estate, voluntary captives to "protocol," making not so much as a single public statement acknowledging Diana's death or providing any words of solace to a hurting nation.
The coldness of the reaction prompted many in England to seriously consider abolishing the monarchy altogether, once and for all consigning it to the ash heap of history as a quaint relic of a bygone era, an anachronistic institution that had long since outlived its usefulness. Yet, the film is much more sympathetic in its treatment of the monarch than that barebones synopsis would suggest, for more than anything else, it sees the queen less as a heartless monster than as an old-fashioned woman ill-equipped to deal with a modern world where baring one's soul in public has become the unquestioned norm and even a dignified solemn funeral is turned into a celebrity-laden, made-for-TV spectacle. She seems genuinely baffled and stunned by the unprecedented outpouring of grief over Diana's death, partly because of the queen's own animosity towards the woman whom she felt demeaned the court by many of her actions, and partly because the queen herself hails from a time when one did one's grieving in private, and when the sole role of a leader in a time of national crisis was to project an image of "stiff-upper-lipped" stoicism and strength for her people.
It would have been easy for writer Peter Morgan and director Stephen Frears to have concentrated exclusively on the queen's aloofness and coldness, to have turned her into a caricature of the snooty, self-absorbed, "let them eat cake" aristocrat. Instead, the filmmakers insist on seeing her as a fully rounded human being, strong willed and unemotional, yet capable of being wounded by the disapproval of her subjects and of extending a hand of compassion to others in her own uniquely subtle way.
Small wonder that Helen Mirren has been showered with every conceivable acting honor for her incomparable portrayal of this complex woman. Mirren has been handed the challenge of illuminating a character who is, by her very nature, unimpassioned and undemonstrative. As such, the actress has had to rely almost exclusively on the subtlest of expressions and gestures to convey the brittleness, stoicism and genuine royal dignity of a woman who literally grew up in the role of one of the world's longest-serving monarchs (she notes early on in the film that the first person to serve as her Prime Minister was a certain someone named Winston Churchill). Yet, Mirren's ability to also show us the queen's compassionate and vulnerable side is what brings the character to life and engages our interest.
Mirren is matched by the brilliant Michael Sheen, whose performance as the newly elected Tony Blair is every bit as mesmerizing as hers. Blair comes off so favorably in this film that one is tempted to suspect some sort of collusion on the part of the scriptwriter and the Prime Minister himself. As envisioned by Morgan, Blair is the perfect foil for the queen, a "modern" man who is able to ever-so-gently prod her highness into saving her royal butt by doing the right thing politically. For Blair is, if nothing else, a clear-eyed pragmatist who, when all around him are calling for imperial heads to roll, shrewdly knows that a palace coup would not be in the best interests of England at this time.
There are fine performances too by James Cromwell as Prince Phillip, Sylvia Syms as the Queen Mum, Alex Jennings as a very milquetoasty Prince Charles, and Helen McCrory as Blair's straightforward, no-nonsense wife who can't understand how her Labor Party husband could be so willing to help the queen extricate herself from the rather sticky wicket she's gotten herself into. The film supplies a generous helping of actual newsreel footage from the time to effectively flesh out the context of the drama.
Almost in spite of itself, the film winds up moving us, even though, in terms of style, "The Queen" is every bit as dry, brittle - some might even say "stuffy" - as the woman who is its subject. Which is precisely why - for all us Anglophiles out here in particular - it makes for such a jolly good show at the cinema.