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Helen Mirren reigns supreme as her Majesty in The Queen |
Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: Helen Mirren (Queen Elizabeth II), Michael Sheen (Tony
Blair), James Cromwell (Prince Philip), Helen McCrory (Cherie Blair), Alex
Jennings (Prince Charles), Roger Allam (Robin Janvin), Sylvia Syms (Queen
Elizabeth, the Queen Mother), Tim McMullan (Stephen Lamport), Mark Bazeley
(Alistair Campbell), Julian Firth (Jonathan Powell)
It’s easy to assume The
Queen is a cozy piece of film-making, not least because writer Peter
Morgan’s exploration of the Royal Family has become every one’s favourite
costume drama viewing thanks to his series The
Crown on Netflix. But that’s to forget the acute sense of the personal and
the public Morgan has, and his ability to write himself into the minds of his
participants. And he’s perfectly matched here with the wry eye of Stephen
Frears. Together they create a film that uses a single moment of history to
explore the nature of our institutions and the particular characters of the
people that fill them.
The film follows the death and aftermath of Princess Diana,
and especially the dramatic public reaction to the death that expressed itself
both in unparalleled scenes of national public mourning and hostility to the
Royal family. Both are things a lifetime of duty and service have failed to
prepare Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) for – but are also things
intrinsically understood by her new Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen).
As the public clamour for the Royals to join the public in an exhibition of
public grief rises, it’s mixed with a furious demand for a royal ‘mea culpa’
for ruining the life of the “People’s Princess”. Could the Royal Family be
finished?
Well of course it wasn’t, and perhaps it’s hard to
understand for those who didn’t live through those crazy days of 1997. But
there was never anything like it before – people wept in the streets as if they
had lost a family member of their own. Princess Diana – a tireless campaigner
for charities, who did a great deal to change public perceptions on AIDS among
many other issues – was also a brilliant master of public opinion, far more
attuned to the countries drift away from stiff-upper-lip reticence towards
celebrity-worship sentimentality than the family she married into. As skilful a
manipulator of the press, as she was a victim of their hounding, she’d made
herself into someone larger than life. It’s the sort of modern cult of celebrity,
that few others mastered – and certainly not in the Royal Family.
Diana hangs over the family in the film like a ghost, an
embodiment of their sense that the country is drifting away from them. It’s a
film where pace and speed are vital, Frears and Morgan brilliantly contrasting
the rushing onslaught of events from the car crash to distraught, increasingly
angry, crowds gathering outside Buckingham Palace with the relatively sedate
official response, which was effectively a private retreat to Scotland and say
and do very little. The film has a brilliant sense of the momentum of those
crazy days, and of the clash between an institution straitjacketed by tradition
and a world where the public exhibition of emotion is de rigour.
What the film finds however is the value in both, and in
doing so perhaps becomes one of the greatest adverts for the monarchy – or at
the very least for Elizabeth II – you will ever see. A lot of this comes from
Helen Mirren superb performance as the Queen. It’s a role Mirren performs with
a combination of Sphinx-like genius and a genuine fragility under a veneer of exactitude.
Mirren’s Elizabeth is a woman whose sense of duty has led to a lifetime of
living as a symbol, a profession that has demanded the avoidance of any sort of
personal opinion what-so-ever (something Morgan leans on with his Alan
Bennettish early scene, where the Queen chats with a maid about the recent
General Election and regrets she never had the chance to tick a box for
something). She’s a woman certain that she has performed her duty in the finest
tradition of her family.
Her tragedy in the film is the bewildered sense of suddenly
finding the country she thought she knew being completely different. Put
simply, the destructive Diana, a difficult person privately but loved
publically, is a woman she can’t understand – and a country that embraces her
is one she struggles to understand as well. Mirren’s Queen has a sharply
defined sense of her place and person, but finds herself questioning all that.
While sharply refusing to be treated as fool, she has a distressed sense of
suddenly being adrift in the world.
Morgan captures all this in a series of engaging “behind the
scenes” moments, but his real trick is his sure touch with symbology. A
magnificent stag on the grounds, being hunted by all and sundry, could easily
have been a clumsy parallel with the Queen, but it’s delivered with real grace
and serves as a true emotional catalyst for the Queen (twice!) as she finally
begins to understand both her own situation, and the necessity for her to bend
her own firm principles and tradition to meet the requirements of this new age.
It’s the main theme of the film, this conflict between
tradition and modernism, but the film sees merit in both. Many of the
formalities of court life are humoursly spoofed in their intricate pomposity,
but the overblown sentimentalism and knee-jerk judgamentalism of the modern world
are hardly much better. As Blair himself, the arch modernist, observes there
will always be a place for a head of state who gives us a symbol to aspire to.
Not least, because the burden of standing for things and being driven to play
to the masses will eventually lead to the destruction of most political careers
(the film mines a fair bit of material between the implicit comparison of Blair’s
saint-like popularity in 1997 to the wreckage of his “Bliar” reputation in
2006).
Frear’s film is a gentle critique but also a sharp defence
of the institution of the monarchy, as practiced by the Queen. It may pain her,
but she will get on with it. Morgan’s script also suggests her quiet wisdom –
the film’s coda has her suggesting that Diana, like all things popular today,
will pass.
The film is less sure footed elsewhere. It’s portrayal of
New Labour at times leans a bit too heavily into public perception – Campbell
(played by a bullying Mark Bazaely) as a brash blow-hard, Labour as being
obsessed with spin and image, Cherie Blair as a judgemental Shrew. Other
members of the Royal family sometimes bend into parody – by the time of the
Crown, Peter Morgan was to find Prince Philip as a far more fascinating and
richer character than he is here. But the performances are strong across the
board, as if following their head of state in Mirren. Sheen’s re-creation of
Blair is pitch perfect, and he also aptly understands the difficult balance in
Blair between genuine decency and ambition. Roger Allam also provides a
wonderfully dry cameo as the Queen’s old fashioned secretary, while Alex
Jennings does a neat impersonation of a Charles desperate to be seen to be
doing the right thing.
The Queen’s main
interest though is showing that tradition and modernism can sit side-by-side –
and that a leaning too far in either direction is harmful for all involved. It
sprinkles in intriguing levels of criticism for Diana, but matches that with a
respect for the Queen, that makes her real while keeping her a symbol. Helen
Mirren’s performance deserved every price going, and the film itself rewards
with each new viewing.
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