Majestic

Rating: 7/10 (9 April 2009)

"The Queen" is a story about the Queen. More specifically, it focuses around how she and Buckingham Palace handled the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana.
The film begins with the introduction of the new Prime Minister Tony Blair (well played by Michael Sheen) to Her Majesty (brilliantly played by Helen Mirren, in her finest work since "Teaching Mrs Tingle"). In a surprise to me, this occurred just before Princess Di was killed, bringing the two figureheads into close relationship very quickly. The two have differing opinions on how to handle the aftermath of the tragedy and Blair soon finds himself needing to be very forceful to avoid the Royal Family becoming a target of scorn. Blair manages to convince the Queen, reluctantly, to make an appearance and a speech in order to save their reputation.
The film cleverly intertwines real-life footage of the events, most notably where the actors are "CGI'd" into original footage. The insight into the Royal Family is fascinating, and more so to the Queen (eg she drives a little jeep around the property). The cast is great, most notably the fore-mentioned plus James Cromwell as Prince Philip and Helen McCrory as Cherie Blair. I wasn't expecting much of the film, but really enjoyed the way it was done plus the walk down memory lane. It brought up lots of surprises eg that Diana was only 36 when she died and that the Queen knew how to drive a jeep and use a mobile phone.
Well worth seeing.