Almost ten years after the tragic and unexpected death of Diana, Princess of Wales, director Stephen Frears and writer Peter Morgan joined forces to create a film based on the aftermath of Diana’s death and the people that her loss most deeply affected—her family.
In many ways, The Queen, at its core, is the story of any modern family who must find their way through a tragic event. We have a close-knit, but splintered family led by a strong matriarch who must coach her family through the death of a loved one. This matriarch is set in her ways and her beliefs and she finds the death of her former daughter-in-law to be a private matter, choosing instead to focus on the feelings of the two young boys left behind. At odds with this matriarch is her rather ineffectual son who struggles with the death of his ex-wife. Throughout their rocky marriage, though they couldn’t make it work, they developed a grudging respect for one another. The head of the family is also torn by the constant commentary of her stuffy, overbearing husband (James Cromwell as The Duke of Edinburgh). Thankfully, she has the advice of her ancient mother to help her through the crisis.
However, this isn’t any ordinary family. This is Britain’s Royal Family. And, there’s one more contingency of the family that needed attention—the people of Britain. The Queen’s subjects were thrown into a period of deep sorrow upon the death of Diana, wondering why the Queen made no public statement of grief. And, so, it is a family that is globally divided, torn by the usual personal politics, but further whittled away by matters of state.
This is the heart of the film—the struggle. Similarly, the struggle between the Queen’s belief in the oath she took as monarch and her faith in her ideals are contrasted against an ever-changing world which is represented by the then-new Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen). Blair’s scenes, in fact, are shot on a different film stock, giving them a visual quality which contrasts sharply with the more painterly world of the Queen’s home at Balmoral.
Helen Mirren, OBE, plays the title role with subtle grace and no trace of mimicry despite the fact that she recreates the Queen’s voice and appearance without flaw. While most actors would appear to be doing an impression of a real figure, Mirren makes you believe that she is Queen Elizabeth II, giving the inscrutable monarch a depth of feeling which we suspect she has, but have never seen.
It’s a brilliant film that hits all the right notes. Sensitive to both sides of the argument, the filmmakers have not cast judgment on anyone, but rather report the facts with relatively good accuracy. They’re also to be commended for keeping the two young Princes—William and Harry—out of the equation, only referring to their feelings and showing them from a distance so as to give their real-life counterparts privacy and respect.
The film opened to excellent reviews—for good reason. It’s an important film for any anglophile or anyone whose family has ever endured a tragedy.
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