Balanced view

Rating: 10/10 (25 November 2006)

I expected this to included more of Elizabeth's life-story than it did, but given that it dwells solely upon the royals' reaction to Diana's death, it still provided a "new" view of life AS a royal. The actual pictures of a nation plunged into despair--leaving bundles of flowers at Kensington Palace---once seemed so tear-jerking. All these years later , those shots recall similar scenes of thousands leaving flowers throughout lower Manhattan days after 911. The sole difference being that those flowers were left for thousands of American "commoners"--who one fateful day had to go to work, and died for doing so--for trying to care for their families. The old scenes scenes of distress for the death of a women who died in a glamor car after leaving the Ritz suddenly feel so dated and over-the-top. Diana was never the "Peoples' Princess"--she was an uneducated, wealthy spoiled aristocrat, anorexic, and troubled young woman who manipulated the Press to "earn" her status, and then had that same Press pronounced by her brother, in footage shown in the movie, as being responsible for her death. Helen Mirren portrays subtle character changes with grace and dignity. She does not rush into these, and other images--driving herself in an old battered car, stranded in a river in a car, constantly awakened to deal with new information, her first meeting with Tony Blair, and recollections of having met Churchill in that same setting when still a young girl herself lend depth to her character's development. She, a young girl,yet Queen, dealing with matters of State. Diana , a young girl, sweeping past photographers with her glamor beau into a glamor car. Two very different lives are portrayed, with two very different life-plans. Anyone watching the movie will come away with their own opinion--NO conclusion or judgement is forced upon the audience.