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The Queen

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Monarchs have always faced threats to their thrones. So much so that royal history, burgeoning with fiendish conspiracies, violent plots, and gruesome assassinations, sometimes reads like a slasher novel. A few recent films have fully exploited this theme. 1998's "Elizabeth", starring the should-have-won-an-Oscar-for-this-role Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I, revolved around an assassination attempt that included the queen's lover. On a less violent theme, Judy Dench, in "Mrs. Brown", depicted Queen Victoria's "trist" with a Highlander that had all of England alight with scandal. Has a new "threatened queen" genre emerged? Apparently so. Enter a rare film about a living monarch who finds her crown imperiled in an astonishingly novel way. For once Her Majesty can watch the drama she lived reemerge in celluloid - not that she probably wants to. Though the film sports a prosaic title, "The Queen", it boldly explores uncharted territory. Here the Queen, reigning in the late twentieth century hinterland between monarchy and non-monarchy, finds herself attacked by her own people. And she, much like the great-great-grandmother she shares with her husband, was not amused.

The film opens as Queen Elizabeth II sits for a regal portrait. Her world unfolds as the royal portraiteer dotes on his imperial subject. Then, in a "we're not in Kansas anymore" flash, the newly elected Tony Blair explodes onto the screen. The now ex-Prime Minister receives voluminous coverage for a movie entited "The Queen." One memorable early scene shows Blair bowing on one knee as the Queen inquires as to his desire to serve the nation. He answers "yes." That probably didn't give too much away. Both figures, Sovereign and Prime Minister, share the spotlight and their disparate worlds collide after catastrophe strikes.

News of Princess Diana's death soars over England. Actual news footage, now almost ten years old, gets woven with dramatization. The late Princess appears often. Tony Blair issues a eulogy almost immediately. But the royal family remains eerily silent, holed up in Balmoral, their Scottish getaway. The Duke of Edinburgh, depicted here as rather heartless and crass, shows more concern for hunting stags than the furor around the dead Princess. He even takes Diana's sons hunting as a diversion. Prince Charles, divorced for a year from Diana, remains the only one moved. He flies to France to bring the body of his ex-wife back to England. As the tension rises the film depicts him as nervous, fidgety, and fearing assassination. Regardless, he cannot alter his mother's public stoicism towards the tragedy. The Queen Mother provides some comic relief. When someone shows concern over photographers intruding on their son's hunt, she says nonchalantly, "if there's a photographer he could be the first kill of the day."

Soon bundles of flowers and messages of grief crowd the gate of Buckingham Palace. But no one's home. The flag, supporting royal traditon, remains lowered in the Queen's absence. Icy silence from the palace sours the public. They begin speaking out against the monarchy. This causes a drastic change in Tony Blair. He suddenly sees the interdependence of the Queen with his own station. In phone call after phone call he pleads with her to do something. She resists even after he gives her a vital statistic: one in four people now favor abolishing the monarchy. Que the Threatened Queen leitmotif. Princess Diana now seems to upstage the royal family even in death. Elizabeth II convinces herself that "this mood" will pass.

It doesn't. Slowly the idea that her people hate her sinks in. Bowing to pressure, the family inspects the bundles of grief displayed outside of Balmoral. They soon return to London and face the dense Buckingham crowds. Here the Queen sees what her public indifference has wrought. She reads "They don't deserve you" and "They have your blood on their hands" on some of the flowers. Here begins the Queen's transformation, criss-crossing with the Prime Minister's. Diana's death irreversably changes them both. Finally, probably more in deference to her public than to the dead Princess, the Queen finally issues a public statement. Blair's staff has the original text rewritten "to make it appear like a human being wrote it." But at this point Blair, who earlier said "someone save these people from themselves", now lashes out in defense as his aide mocks the Queen's sincerity. The fuse begins to fizzle.

The film explodes a haunting paradox. Royal tradition, often seen as the bulwark of the monarchy, here threatens to undermine the institution itself. Insisting on not raising Buckingham's flag to honor Diana and treating the tragedy as "a private matter" enfuriates the public. Stuff tradition. They demand a change of protocol. Subsequently, Britain turned upside down.

Of course a film depicting living breathing people fumbling through a crisis will inevitably draw controversy. Blair gets depicted as savior here, the steam in the engine. But the real Elizabeth II issued a statement that she decided to speak out all by herself. In her own words no one persuaded her actions. Not only that, Blair and the Queen have supposedly never divulged what passed between them during that tense week. Given that, this film presents an educated guess as to the workings of the English government during that time. One wonders what Tony Blair and the Queen really think of the film. One also wonders if the royal family and the Prime Minister really watch that much television.

The performances throughout remain stunning. Helen Mirren and Micheal Sheen shine as the protagonists/antagonists. Mirren's performance dazzles so much that viewers will forget that they're watching Helen Mirren. She presents an example of undetectable acting at its finest. And though no intense action takes place the film still provides a roller coaster ride. The actors and the direction by Stephen Frears, just off of "Mrs. Henderson Presents", obviously deserve credit here.

Best of all, "The Queen" allows viewers to come to their own conclusions surrounding that controversial week in 1997. Was the public right in lashing out at the monarchy? Was the Queen sincere in her famous "grandmother" speech? Was the monarchy really threatened? The film depicts the events without mashing opinions and answers in viewers' faces. Audiences can leave with vastly differing viewpoints. And what's better than great film? Having great conversations about great film. "The Queen" will doubtless keep tongues happily waggling for some time to come.

Helen Mirren is getting the requisite kudos for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth. But there's another portrayal in Stephen Frears' excellent film of an equally public figure that is going relatively overlooked: Michael Sheen's spot-on take on Tony Blair. I was totally mesmerized at just how perfectly Sheen had both the look and feel of the unbridled optimism of TB at the outset of his first term. That's key because it's Blair's intuition on the matters at hand here that are instrumental in shaking the Royal Family out of their tone-deaf dismissal of the unfolding events across the country.

It's interesting to see the portrayals here and see how harsh or sympathetic they are (Mirren's Elizabeth is complex and beyond analysis here):

Prince Philip - A devastating take on him

Price Charles - Painted very sympathetically by Alex Jennings, but obviously cowed by his mother

Alastair Campbell - A very positive take on New Labour's wordsmith by Mark Bazeley (I'm a big Campbell fan, so it was good to see the script honor his contributions to Blair's early successes).

Queen Mom - Yikes! Not a very pretty picture

Frears' delicate and respectful approach keeps William and Harry just off the picture.

What will really take you about the movie is this: as many reviewers here note, they found themselves strangely moved and shocked by Diana's death, like she was a member of the family. When those scenes play out here, wow, you'll be quite surprised at the emotions that well up in you. It will happen. Trust me.

Frears - as pitch-perfect movie helmsman - includes the stirring end portion of the eulogy penned and intoned by Charles, Earl of Spencer (Diana's brother). Spencer's speech is generally regarded as one of the finest eulogies ever rendered. It has become a part of British textbooks. Here's the part you hear in the movie:

"I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time. For taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had joy in her private life. Above all we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds."

That will send a chill up your spine when you see it in the theater.

There are several themes to this excellent and most original and interesting film; but what it is about more than anything else is how political regimes and whole dynasties can be undone on account of a single error of judgment. It is only near the end that Her Majesty warns her prime minister that this will happen to him, and happen suddenly and without warning. It had nearly happened to her, he had been the saving of her on this occasion, and her dire prediction for him probably holds an uneasy message for herself too.

At the start the Queen is full of regal self-assurance, neatly putting her boyish and slightly nervous novice of a prime minister in his place by telling him he is sitting where Churchill once sat. In next to no time the positions are reversed, as Blair's acute political antennae tell him that HM is in imminent danger of losing her subjects' allegiance, something that would have been unimaginable only days previously, through trusting her own judgment and listening to the advice of her husband and her mother in respect of how to react to the death of Princess Diana. Throughout the crisis Blair is adroit and sure-footed, the monarch is made to realise bitterly from the newspapers how he has it right and she has been hopelessly at sea, but unlike her family counsellors she has the wit to swallow her pride and retrieve the situation before it slides beyond retrieval. This one incident could have undone a lifetime of unswerving dedication, universally acknowledged, to her country, and put the skids under the House of Windsor itself. Her warning to Blair is really made from a new sense of respect and a shocked realisation of how quickly and brutally the tables can turn. And how right she has been. This film does not make the matter explicit, but any viewer can sense the irony of Blair's own political fate. For years he seemed unable to put a foot wrong as far as the public were concerned, his luck was near-incredible (and his political nous was enormously greater than Churchill's); and then he blew it all with one foolish and ill-considered assertion in the Commons about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Just one mistake, when one is not sensing danger, is enough.

The depiction of the main players is brilliant, and I found it fascinating to guess just how accurate it may be. Leaks, rumours, gossip and memoirs certainly descend on the public these days like leaves in Vallombrosa, giving us some shaky basis for forming a judgment. In the nature of the case a prime minister has to make himself (or herself) familiar to a rightly suspicious electorate, but a monarch should always retain some mystique, and the other dramatis personae, even the heir to the throne, are only intermittently in the limelight. Inevitably and rightly the film's characterisation is creative, but it is coherent and convincing provided one does not mistake it for portraiture from life. The acting has been widely praised and I concur entirely. The atmosphere is beautifully touched in too, from the family life of the Blairs (and the Windsors) to the blokeish informality of the New Labour apparatchiks in Downing Street and above all the hushed flunkeyish reverence accorded to the Queen, cocooning her in the chrysalis that nearly devoured her.

I hope there is no possibility of a sequel, as a masterpiece like this should be left unique. Within days now Her Britannic Majesty will be welcoming a new prime minister whom she probably suspects of being a closet republican, as I suspect he is too. I shall be watching out all the same for one thing that this film says clearly through the lips of Cherie Blair, something to the effect that all Labour prime ministers finish up devoted to the Queen. Maybe it will be the same story with Brown, but I wonder how matters will stand once the monarch is no longer Elizabeth II. When that becomes the case the story of Princess Diana is likely to open a new chapter.

It's hard to imagine a better drama. Although one of my fellow reviewers decided to spend the time sharing with us what asinine things he thought of while watching the film, I will simply say that this crew has brought us a wonderful, well-acted performance of a witty script. Watch this and just savor the chemistry between the queen and prime minister and it's so interesting being an American and watching how the monarchy functions.

The British royal family has weathered abdications, wars, and scandal. But one of the nastiest hits to them in the twentieth century came when Princess Di was killed.

And so "The Queen" tries to get inside the perfectly-permed head of the British Queen Elizabeth II, nearly ten years ago. Helen Mirren gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the title character, as she attempts to weather public and personal difficulties. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

The movie opens with the election of Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), who comes to visit the queen (Mirren), despite being rather nervous about his new job. The country has been off balance ever since Di died in a car crash a few weeks ago, and her passing leaves the royals with mixed feelings. The queen decrees that since Diana divorced Prince Charles, she was no longer a royal, and her arrangements are to be left to her family.

What she doesn't realize is that the people ADORED Diana, and continue to adore her in the weeks that follow. Then the press joins in, berating the royal family for coldly ignoring the ex-princess, and heralding the Labour Party Blair. Her husband and mother think that she should continue doing nothing -- but the Queen has learned that sometimes the people need to be appeased.

"The Queen" unfolds slowly like an old book, and Stephen Frears gives it the dignified gloss that usually belongs to older movies. Scenes that could have been maudlin or cliche are underplayed, which makes them more powerful. One example is of the queen peering in as Charles tells his young sons that their mother has died.

Fortunately, as in real life, there's also comedy as well as confusion and tragedy; Peter Morgan injects some humor when a nervy Blair meets the Queen for the first time. Morgan also spins u[ the kind of dialogue we can imagine the droll Elizabeth or prickly Prince Philip saying ("Sleeping in the streets and pulling out their hair for someone they never knew. And they think WE'RE mad!").

Mirren doesn't normally look much like Elizabeth II. She's younger, taller, and prettier. But with some padding and makeup, she manages to BECOME Elizabeth II. She's dignified, haughty, yet Mirren manages to bring across that she's bewildered and vulnerable as well. In short, she makes her version of Elizabeth II a person.

She's also backed by magnificent performances by Sheen and James Cromwell. Cromwell is excellent as the crotchety, stubborn Prince Philip, who thinks the best way to deal with grief is to go hunting. And Sheen is very good as the Prime Minister who is just starting his work, and who gains a new perspective on the royals.

"The Queen" is a unique, quietly compelling film, as it explores what might have happened within the royal family -- and the person that Queen Elizabeth might be, underneath the royal mask.

There has been a wide discussion of the story of the film so I will not go into a lot of detail in that regard. The Queen is a well acted, thought provoking film. I cannot comment on what might have been left out, was invented or compressed to tell the story of the Royal family in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana but what we do see rings true with the information that is generally known. The performance by Helen Mirren is Oscar caliber; my test for a performance is how convinced I am that the actor has become the role and Ms. Mirren is Queen Elizabeth II. Indeed, the entire cast is superb. Michael Sheen is terrific as Tony Blair and expresses a good range of emotion dealing sternly with his staff, diplomatically with the Queen and coping with family life. James Cromwell is also good as Prince Philip exhibiting perhaps the ultimate stiff upper lip attitude of the English upper class. Equally good is Sylvia Syms as the Queen Mother, who is most concerned, so it seems that Diana's public funeral is being based off her own. Alex Jennings makes an interesting Prince Charles; although he does not look a lot like Charles he worked into his performance the Prince's mannerisms

The audience is treated to what amounts to the daily life of the Queen on summer holiday at the family estate at Balmoral. This otherwise peaceful retreat is interrupted by the death of Princess Diana on August 30, 1997 and becomes a chronological telling of the events that occurs up to her funeral. The film does not take a point-of-view and does not present very much about Princess Diana other than glimpses of her public life, which allows us to focus on how the Royal family dealt with her death. It is going on ten years since the events depicted in the film occurred giving all of us a better perspective on what happened. At the time, the Royal family came under harsh criticism for their perceived lack of reaction to Princess Diana's death; this film provides all sides and allows us to better understand the Queen and her reaction first to the death of the princess and then to the criticism of her conduct.

The episode of the stag in the film is one of the events that may be fictional but it serves to remind us that Princess Diana, like the stag, was hunted for her beauty. The Queen makes this connection in the film and so her attempt to shoo the animal away when she encounters it and her quiet sorrow when he is killed. I think that one comes away with a better understanding of Queen Elizabeth, and one can see the influence of past generations - that of her grandmother Queen Mary - in her attitude toward the public life that she inherited from her father. The Queen is a thought provoking film that needs to be seen.

I was not excited to view this film, but found myself getting slowly caught up in the fascinating story spun around the week of events after Princess Diana's death. Rather than taking the easy road and making Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Monarchy a target, this film chose to show both the new (Tony Blair) and the old (The Queen) in a fairly impartial light. It is much more interesting to see how both sides learn and grow from each other by being willing to communicate and learn in what must have been an extremely difficult situation. Helen Mirren gives a miraculous performance and actually appears to be channeling Her Royal Highness. As Philip, James Cromwell portrays one of the few characters in this film who is thoroughly unlikeable. As Charles, Alex Jennings gives the portrayal of a Prince who has spent his life in a state of limbo, and seems to be ineffective both as a Royal Leader as well as a leader in his own home. Beautiful story, well written, and stunning performances, not to mention visual perfection. Get this film!

The mood of this film is very careful, reverent, and poised, much like Helen Mirren's Queen Elizabeth II. It plays out patiently over a very emotional issue for many people around the world: the death of Princess Diana and the reaction of the English monarchy.

Peter Morgan's script does an excellent job of presenting all sides of an historical moment. It never feels as if he's trying to garner sympathy for any parties involved. We see the queen trying to deal with the situation in the way that she sees fit: the most traditional, nonreactionary, unemotional way. We see Tony Blair trying to convince her that this is not the proper way to proceed. We see the public's reaction to Diana's death.

What struck me the most about the film was how the power of the media was displayed. In numerous scenes, the prime minister is shown scanning the headlines for the public's reactions. The queen is shown watching news reports of people's reactions. When Tony Blair attempts to side with the Queen slightly and help her the newspapers don't report it, they continue to report the queen's lack of action. To me, this brought into the equation the very real idea that while the government may rule, the media can decide what to say about events, and therefore effect public opinion in a much more direct way.

This film moves slowly, but is never boring. It definitely opens up many topics of conversation. This was a very well thought out and executed film.

"The Queen" is only a portait of Queen Elizabeth. That was established early on in the first scene when she is posing for the portait painter. With that, we are warned that what follows is not going to be "truth" in as much as a biography or documentary. It is the film's "impression" of the queen at a time when the monarchy was forced to accept the tragic events of Diana's death and to join with the rest of its subjects in grief. Therefore, the portrait reminds us that the focus is squarely upon the Queen herself and no one else. In spite of all the biographies about the British royal family, not one of them can be considered to have an authoritative perspective. The Royal Family have endeavored for centuries not to allow daylight in upon the magic of monarchy. They know that to do so would invite a host of trouble. Such daylight upon magic would bring them all to Hector's and Hilda's, as Prince Philip stated in the fim. It's a delicate balance that they must preserve. So, what we get from this film is, as usual, merely an impression but certainly not the truth. The stag motif, however, helps us to understand the message that lies beneath.

The stag is indeed an interesting additive, and it is the most intriging figure in the film. Many viewers have interpreted the stag as a representation of Diana. I can certainly understand the reasoning behind that interpretation. However, let's go a little further into the stag motif. If you miss the motif, you miss the connection. I will say right now that the stag is not in fact Diana, but the Queen herself. Why? Let's review the number of times that verbal references to "stag" are made and that crucial time when the stag appears.

When the Queen walks down a long corridor at Balmoral to take a call from the Prime Minister, notice the stag heads mounted on the walls along that corridor. The stag is therefore connected with "monarchy" or imperialism.

Just before the stag appears in the river scene, the Queen is sitting down. She has had a car accident because she was driving too fast along a rocky road and is now stranded in the river. She begins to cry. Then she turns and sees the stag. The Queen is an active deer stalker, and that is what has kept her in such good physical shape to this day. She identifies with deer. And in the scene when the stag appears, he seems to identify with her. Both the Queen and stag establish eye contact with each other, hence the camera closeup on the stag as he gazes at her and she at him. She calls him "a beauty," because to her he is something ethereal, magical, and "otherworldly" just as monarchy is to the public. The stag is a sacrificial figure in this scene, although the Queen does not quite see him as sacrifical at that point. To her, he is "a beauty" only. She will later learn what he represents to her.

After the princes hear of the news of their mother's death, Prince Philip encourages them to take out their anger on a stag that has been known to appear on the 40,000-acre property of Balmoral. To Philip the stag is nothing more than a deer. He never quite gets the significance of the stag's meaning. When Philip tries to get the boys out in the fresh air for deer stalking, the stag managed to elude them. The stag has wandered off to neighboring property. He has left the Balmoral estate.

Later in the film, Prince Philip tells the Queen that the stag has been shot on neighboring property by a banker who had come out for a day's shooting.

The Queen drives over to the neighboring property to see the stag in the cleaning room. There he hangs by his hind legs. He has been decapitated, and that's an important point. The caretaker tells the Queen that the stag is a 14-pointer, an "imperial." It is there in that room that the Queen releases her emotions. She hopes that "he did not suffer much" when the shooting party had to follow him for miles before finishing him off. She begins to identify with the stag even more in this scene. She understands that the stag has been sacrificed. I think she now begins to see herself as a sacrifical object. As she examines the stag's head on the table in the cleaning room, she touches the point on the stag's cheek where he has been wounded. She identifies with the stag even more at this point. She looks at the head, no doubt remembering all the beheaded kings and queens in the historical past, and she probably recalls how important it is to connect with her people at a time when she is so reluctant to do so. The "stag," as the Queen, is going to be brought down, but for a purpose. And she learned that she had to modernize, to reinvent the monarchy in order to reconnect with her people with whom she had been so out of touch.

The Queen feels a connection with this stag, precisely at a time when she herself is being "hunted and brought down" by a citizenry who demands her presence in London for Diana's funeral. She is finally brought to her knees when she is forced to deliver an address to the nation about Diana. But she is not accustomed to demands. She is as vulnerable as the stag. She vainly tries to remain elusive at Balmoral but to no avail.

Like the stag and like Diana, the Queen is also a hunted figure by her subjects.

Thanks to all who read this, and I hope you reply to my review with thoughts of your own.

Good movies, like good books and music, should be viewed and heard many times, especially when the performance of one or more characters is remarkable. I saw "The Queen" several times when it was released, and now I own the DVD, which I have also watched on many occasions. What invariably happens is that we see a scene in a different light, we discern something that previously eluded us, or we radically change our perception of a character. This suggests that the way we perceive all media is in constant flux, and that sometimes we are never quite certain about our judgments.

For me, the more that I have seen "The Queen," the less I am troubled by her (and her mother's and husband's) obliviousness and apparently stubborn and anachronistic behavior. In the first viewings, I remember agreeing with Michael Sheen (who plays Blair superbly): "Will someone please save these people from themselves?!."

But after more viewings, I began to feel sorry for Elizabeth and viewed her as a victim of tradition, duty and the cloistered, myopic surroundings she lived in that seemed to cut her off from common sense and the changing, "modern" world (the word "modern" is a key concept in the film). I began to feel compassion for her and felt that she was simply overwhelmed by events that she could not (rather than would not) comprehend. (I think the movie attempts to engage our compassion, but in one instance it does so with an astonishingly inept and heavy-handed metaphor of Elizabeth compared to a noble stag at Balmoral that is relentlessly stalked and eventually killed.) So, again, I agreed with Sheen: "That woman has given her whole life in service to her people. Fifty years doing a job that she never wanted. A job she watched kill her father. She's executed it with honor, dignity, and as far as I can tell, without a single blemish, and now we're all baying for her blood. All because she's struggling to lead the world in mourning for someone who threw everything she offered back in her face. And who for the last few years, seemed committed 24/7 to destroying everything she holds most dear!"

Recently, I happened to see on YouTube Elizabeth's actual 1997 speech on television from Buckingham Palace and compared it with Helen Mirren's same speech in the movie. And then I started to question my judgment about my compassion for Elizabeth.

That, I think, is the conflicting nature of this movie, and the remarkably layered performance that Mirren gives. We may never discover what transpired during that historically important week, and moreover, which Elizabeth actually participated in those events.