One of the best films of the last five years

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2007)

I saw this over the holidays and I consider it my best outing at a cinema in at least five years. I wasn't made to feel disgusted with the human race and I actually learned something. It is all the more surprising since Stephen Frears has made a specialty of portraying the working classes, if not the lower depths of humanity and his latest venture ("Mrs. Henderson Presents", a nudie musical starring Judi Dench!) was a total and abject misfire.
I am a Canadian so Elizabeth (Elisabeth with an "s" in French) is my Queen, even though French Canadians are not reputed to love her. I appreciate that she actually speaks better French than most of our our prime ministers. And I have always felt personally sorry for her during the death of Lady Di fracas, a humiliation she never deserved. This film demonstrates with fictitious means the opinion that she is not only a very special human being but also the best queen England has ever had. Helen Mirren's interpretation is utterly convincing and probably inspired by months of study of Elizabeth's footage in the 1992 BBC cinéma-vérité documentary "Elizabeth R" (not listed on the IMDb and not available on DVD), which is still the definitive document on the Queen's real personality.
I found the whole experience simultaneously overwhelming and respectful, intricate in its details and nuances and somewhat poetic. The stag episode, especially, shows that she has subordinated her lifelong love of animals and much of her personal likes and dislikes to the dictates of tradition and the royal family's male obsession for the hunt. It also gives her a rare occasion to get in touch with her own feelings concerning mortality and Di's passing away.
Lady Di comes off as a floozy who played with fire by courting the medias (and was eventually destroyed by them) but was also a good mother, which is how it should be and the best way to remember her. Tony Blair comes off as a cynical but juvenile opportunist/upstart who still has a few hard political and life lessons to learn. I won't even mention how his wife is portrayed; she is probably the only character in the film who would have reason to sue the filmmakers if not for the fact that it all probably happened exactly as depicted.