Excellent Film

Rating: 9/10 (28 April 2007)

Its not easy to make this kind of movie. The plot was followed by most of the audience as it occurred in reality, and has been analyzed and re-analyzed in the years since. For the most part the principal characters are all still alive, and active in the public eye. Our familiarity with them makes the actors jobs much more difficult as every viewer has the ability to critique the performance in terms of accuracy.
The makers of the film overcame these obstacles. The acting is wonderful, and the film progresses at a good pace. The use of archive footage, and how it is edited into the film provides an interesting counterpoint to an otherwise conservatively filmed movie. This technique gives the audience some insight into how the royals must feel, a formal audience one second, and blur of flashes and images assaulting you the next.
Helen Mirren is excellent. Her queen is an heir to a thousand year old tradition that is being slowly backed into a corner by the people. She wants to hold on to the very few things left to her, tradition and proper decorum, and even those are stripped away from her one by one. At the end we see her transformation, her realization that the institution of the monarchy is more important than its details. And perhaps even though she symbolizes a by gone era, she chose to tread in new territory in how the royal family would act in its role of the symbolic head of the family of Britain.
The DVD adds two excellent commentaries which greatly enhance the film. First is the director and writer, giving their perspective on the making of the film, while the second is by a royal expert, who points out departures from reality that the creative process took, as well as putting events and actions into context and explaining their importance or relevance.