Star Review
The days that followed Princess Diana’s death amounted to one of the strangest episodes of recent British history. Suddenly, England was another country, with an unprecedented outbreak of grief and sentimentality that shattered centuries of stiff-upper-lips and stoicism. It was the Queen’s failure to anticipate this social phenomenon that is the focus of Stephen Frears’ excellent film.
Helen Mirren is quite remarkable in the role – her Elizabeth II is spirited yet vulnerable, caring yet detached, shrewd yet naïve. Tony Blair’s fervent zeal is no match for her dry wit and (literal) majesty in the film’s opening scenes, yet as the film progresses and her popularity wanes, she finds herself trapped, forced into an open expression of grief foreign to her and her beliefs. It is Blair, not she, who correctly judges the public mood. A highly symbolic moment involving a hunted stag could have been mawkish, yet Mirren (and Frears) make it a moving and tender vignette. At the time of writing, a deserved Best Actress Oscar seems inevitable.
Michael Sheen is also very good as Blair, in a role that could easily have been played for cheap ridicule. His prime minister may be gauche, but his desire for public approval comes across as touching rather than calculated – for the most past, at least (Mark Bazeley’s vulgar, weaselly Alastair Campbell arouses somewhat less sympathy). It is also fascinating to watch current well-known figures being enacted by the wonderful cast, such as Cherie Blair (a cynical and caustic Helen McCrory), The Queen Mother (a wonderfully sharp Sylvia Sims, indignant that the plans for her funeral have been hi-jacked) and, best of all, James Cromwell’s crabby Prince Philip (“Elton John wishes to sing at the funeral. Should be a first for Westminster Abbey”).
The first-rate script captures the surreal zeitgeist of the latter half of 1997 with uncanny precision. The arrival of New Labour and the departure of Diana within a few months will be analysed repeatedly across the decades, as people try to grasp how these two events would change the public face of Britain forever; historians could do little better than to watch Frears’ film.
Alex Davidson on 1st February 2007
View all 154 of Alex Davidson’s reviews
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Film Description
A fictionalised account of the events that followed in the wake of Princess Diana's death in 1997, when Queen Elizabeth II (played by an outstanding Helen Mirren) had to come to terms with a nation in mourning as well as a Royal family in turmoil. The fine script gets to the heart of the matters in hand and events are lent a considerable degree of authenticity by the use of contemporary documentary footage.
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The Queen
