The Queen
I’m always a little apprehensive of anytime people all pile on the bandwagon behind a film or in this case a performance. By now you’d have to be living under a rock to have not heard how good Helen Mirren is in The Queen. She’s been on the cover of every magazine from Entertainment Weekly to the AARP newsletter. It’s completely insane for someone in a film this small to get as much press as she’s gotten, but damned if she isn’t good.
The Queen takes place in the days after the death of Princes Diana and focuses around the royal family’s reluctance to acknowledge it. Newly elected Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) struggles to understand how these people could be so cut off that they could completely misunderstand the needs of their citizenry. In dealing with the Royals, Blair not only begins to understand them, but he sees that there may be a place for them in a modern world.
I’m not going to be going out on a limb by any stretch of the imagination to say Mirren deserves to win the Academy Award. I think the general consensus at this point is that she should. I should just point out that she really does a remarkable job of portraying the struggle of Elizabeth to reconcile her traditional emotional restraint, feelings toward Diana and her responsibility to her people. She does all this with graceful restraint and class and never paints her in an unflattering light. It would have been extremely easy to have made the Queen an outdated villainess, but instead she’s a leader struggling to do what’s right.
Unfortunately, with all the talk of Mirren’s work Michael Sheen as Tony Blair hasn’t gotten the respect that he deserves. Mirrens’ performance is hinged on Sheen being her counterpoint. Without him as a symbol of change and a modern Britain, you don’t have anything for her to work with. Luckily he not only pulls it off, he does so brilliantly.
It’s this juxtaposition of Blair’s modern England and Elizabeth’s traditional one that lies at the core of the film. The death of Princess Diana is simply the catalyst that causes it to happen. Blair has everyone call him “Tony” while everything with Elizabeth is routed in ceremony (bow upon entering and exiting her room and never show her your back). While the she lives in castles and has papers severed to her in baskets, Blair’s family is crowded on top of one another and his wife does paper work on the couch in front of the television.
I was glad to see that this wasn’t as much a story about the tragic death of an icon as it was about how a nation changes. A single event can point out how maybe it’s time to reexamine your traditional values and see how they fit within a modern world, but also remembering that those values have a place there as well. Director Stephen Frears could have easily turned The Queen into an historical indictment of the Crown, but instead he captures a true moment in history where a nation and the world were forever changed.
The Grade
- Story: A
- Acting: A+
- Visuals: B+
- Originality: A
- Enjoyability: A-
- Overall: A
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