Feels like a television drama perhaps, but if it is, then it is a superior one

Rating: Null/10 (12 July 2007)

1997. Princess Diana is in a car crash in a tunnel in Paris. Hours later she is dead. Back in England, the new Labour Prime Minster Tony Blair senses how the country will react to the news and addresses the nation with a poignant and perfectly-scripted statement outside of a church. Meanwhile, the Royal family stay remote, trying to handle the grief, with the Queen refusing to lose her dignity by engaging in this very public mourning. However with the tabloids (who else) leading the charge, soon her restraint is being seen as callousness.
I had fallen asleep watching a movie after a Saturday night at work and was woken by television in the middle of the morning to hear of the car crash. I went back to sleep and woke in the morning to find that Diana had died as a result of her injuries. I think many people were surprised by the public outpouring of emotion that followed  not just because it was Diana but more because we hadn't really seen this type of thing before. I'm still quite young but I still think of the British stiff upper-lip and dignity and this very public mourning just seems to contrast with that idea. Many people think this way looking back so imagine then the conflict in the minds of the Royal family  mostly an older generation raised to be dignified, restrained and respectful, with public emotion perhaps seen as distasteful.
At the time this contrast was even more obvious as the UK had just had the young, modernising Blair sweeping into the office of the Prime Minister. It is simple to view (as some tabloids did) the Royal response as being heartless and cold but this is more the failure to understand what the differences are between the previous generation (who were told restraint) and the generations of the late 1990's (where television talk shows had encouraged outward emotion while tabloids erode the idea of privacy and restraint). I'm not sure when it actually happened but Diana's death was the biggest, sudden demonstration of it and I agreed with the line "something's happened  some shift in values" because even to me as a "normal" person it was somewhat of a surprise, like it had come from nowhere.
The title of the film suggests it will be about the Queen herself and, while it is true that her character is the main one, the film itself is more about this cultural divide between what England used to be and what it is now and how that is manifested in the attitude of the Royals versus that of the "public" (or at least a million or so of them and countless newspaper editors). As a total production it feels a little bit like it has been made as a high-budget television drama but this doesn't really matter because the film is very strong in how it depicts this generational clash. The narrative stays closely to what we know as facts and, around that, builds private conversations and interactions in a way that is convincing within the context of both the people but also the theme.
In doing this well the film surprised me by being stronger than I had expected. I had feared that it would be a soapy replay of the period of time, with fictional conversations filling it out but by being close to reality and understanding what was actually happening that week (which the media mostly failed to appreciate or chose to ignore or simplify). A great deal of credit for this belongs to Peter Morgan as writer as his script allows for the dual approach to be equally strong. Frears' direction is perhaps a bit "television" but mostly he is good  I liked the way that peace and remoteness of Balmoral was contrasted with the busyness of New Labour's government in London.
In regards the cast of course it is Mirren that takes the headlines as she presents her character in a way that shows she does understand the cultural conflict within the narrative really well. Sheen's Blair is good as it has been a few other places. He looks and acts like the man but never to the point where it becomes an impersonation. Cromwell does well to avoid the "clown" caricature that we all think of when thinking of Prince Phillip, while Jennings, Syms and others make up the family well. Bazeley's Campbell is an enjoyably harsh and cynical creation and he does it pretty well.
Overall then, it may have a feel of a television drama at times but the strong performances and script mean it runs stronger than I expected. Kudos to Morgan in particular for writing a script that balances the "drama" side of the story with the wider context of generational and cultural misunderstandings.