Another level of everything

Rating: 8/10 (21 February 2007)

We know, when we're watching a movie about true events, that we are witnessing the lives of people who existed and did things. In politics, we see recognized persons doing good or bad for their community. I have come to like biographical films (in the end, telling someone's life is a biography), without caring which period of the person's existence it is showing.
Stephen Frears' "The Queen" is another level of biography, however, because it is about something that happened only ten years ago. It is about the Queen Elizabeth of England, and about her discussion with Prime Minister Tony Blair to decide if Princess Diana should have had a private funeral or a public one for everyone to see.
Of course, each one of the parties had his beliefs about the matter. It was acknowledged that Elizabeth wasn't fond of Diana, but she was a massively popular phenomenon. I mean, my mother loved her and she doesn't even live in England. "It's her family decision to do a private funeral and since she was no longer a member of the Royal Family I can't intervene", the Queen says to Tony Blair, a young and intelligent man who wanted to change the classic monarchic rules. "Wouldn't you say that given her popularity Diana should have a funeral in which many people can take part?", Blair replies the Queen.
With respect he treated her; I imagine he still does. Because don't forget that "The Queen" shows personalities that are still alive and doing their jobs today; which is fairly risky. Peter Morgan wrote a screenplay commencing from the facts and took it deep inside the Windsor and the Buckingham Palace, right to the Queen's bedroom and even to the Prime Minister's family house. Morgan deals with grief in every possible way.
Prince Charles' grief for loosing the mother of his children; the Royal Family's grief, between acceptance and resignation for the troubles Diana caused them; the people's grief for all that Diana did for them and the children; and the Queen's silent grief. She went off by herself to the countryside and stayed quiet, thinking. Her majesty alone, dealing with her pain. Here, Frears understands that he needs to analyze his main character in every possible way; so he does and Affonso Beato's cinematography gets the mood perfectly. The cinematographers of the Best Picture Nominees were definitely overlooked this year: "Babel" looks beautiful; "Little Miss Sunshine" looks so lucid; "The Departed" choices are the right ones...Luckily, the nominations are not simple works; I'm going for "The Prestige".
"The Queen" is also about loneliness in the most difficult times and about two very different individuals (Elizabeth and Tony Blair) who, probably, admired each other in silence. These two characters and the actors who play them sustain the picture; even when James Cromwell portrays an accurate Phillip and Alex Jennings makes Prince Charles as laughable as in real life. We could also say that the actors are helped big time by the press and the images of the news that covered Diana's death all over the world (put together by Lucia Zucchetti's masterful edition).
Tony Blair is played by Michael Sheen with a lot of personal strength and determination that leave him at the character turn of his career. I hope to see good things from him in the near future. What I can say about Helen Mirren is that the Oscar she's going to win, besides her acting skills, is because of the courage it takes to play a character of this magnitude; an emblematic figure that can easily watch what the actress has done. Her work is dignifying; beyond admiration.
There's a lot more to be said about "The Queen"Let's just leave it at: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown".