As spectacular a docu-drama as the genre ever gets

Rating: 8/10 (13 June 2011)

A scrupulous docu-drama about how the death of Princess Diana elevated a newly elected prime minister and nearly devastated the British monarchy, The Queen does a wonderful job at fairly depicting the strengths and weaknesses of aristocratic privilege and democratic modernity. With a script that avoids all excess and sparkling performances by Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen, it's that rarest of all works of fiction - one that enlightens and well as entertains.
Anyone old enough to remember the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di also remembers the way her life ended in Paris, practically chased to death by the paparazzi. In the week after that tragedy, Great Britain was consumed in an orgy of public grief and a growing anger at a royal family that pointedly refused to join in the ostentatious mourning. This movie seeks to give a fair hearing to the much maligned royals, acknowledging the basic ridiculousness of a 20th century society willfully engaging in the mass delusion of treating an unelected, unappointed and factually powerless figurehead as if she were still important, while being fair to that figurehead and her family for the odd behavior their odder situation has cultivated in them.
Deftly fusing together real news footage with re-enactments and dramatic inventions, The Queen is a brilliant blend of family turmoil, political maneuvering and social observation. It takes us inside the royal family and tries to demonstrate the peril and the promise of hereditary power. The Queen (Helen Mirren) is a shining example that when privilege is married to at least a sense of responsibility, it can produce someone quite impressive and worthy. When privilege is divorced from responsibility, we see the results in the seething arrogance of the Queen's husband, Philip (James Cromwell), and the sniveling weakness of her son, Prince Charles (Alex Jennings). Charles is actually the most fascinating character in the story, as it's subtly suggested that keeping him in subservient irrelevance for his entire adult life trapped him in a state of emotional adolescence.
Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) is a man given power to reform British life and finds his first challenge is the daunting task of preserving the very heart of British tradition. In life, Princess Diana became a complicated woman with virtues and vices. In death, she became a secular saint which the public demanded the royal family bow down before. The fact that Diana had been a pain in the royal neck for many years didn't matter. The fact that such insistent wallowing in grief was overwrought and unseemly didn't matter. The people demanded and their supposed sovereign had to obey, something the movie makes clear the Queen should have understood herself.
This is just a tremendous film with crackerjack writing and masterful direction that crystallizes a moment of history about as well as anything else in cinema. You should definitely watch this.