The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)

[Lino]

Why do I find the premise of this film so hilariously exploitative? Helen Mirren might get her well-due Oscar, though.

[colinr0380]

This is the Empire magazine review by Kim Newman (page 40):

Stephen Frears' latest is essentially a sequel to The Deal, the TV play about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown which Frears directed from another Peter Morgan script. Michael Sheen gives another uncanny, insightful performance as a younger, more with-it Tony Blair than the embattled character we see these days. He is matched by an equally remarkable turn from Dame Helen Mirren who turns an icon familiar from postage stamps and Christmas broadcasts into an actual human being in one of the most difficult roles of her career.

While Princess Diana, as with Joseph McCarthy in Good Night and Good Luck, is played by artfully-selected news snippets her presence permeates the film. Towards the end, as the protocols of centuries has been sundered by a vast outpouring of public pressure, a slight slo-mo shot of the princess is a dead ringer for that final smile-to-camera of Damien in The Omen. It makes this seem oddly like a ghost story in which the presence of the blessed dead lingers on Earth, somehow managing to bring out the best and the worst in everyone.

Whole other films could be made about these events, concerning the bizarre Al-Fayed family, the mysterious circumstances of the Paris car crash or the eternally squirming press. The Queen, however, imposes dramatic shape by playing the tragedy as a backdrop to a peculiar love story. Cherie Blair (Helen McCrory) comments that all Labour Prime Ministers "go ga-ga" over the Queen, and sure enough, the film's spine has Sheen's sparkle-eyed Blair falling under the spell of Mirren's war-forged, repressed-but-feeling, quietly outraged monarch.

The easy route would be to play this all as satire, and there are funny moments from James Cromwell as a splendid Duke of Edinburgh, Sylvia Syms as a miffed Queen Mum and Tim McMullan as the gleefully spinning Alistair Campbell, though some real-life vox pops from famous and ordinary people are just as cringe-inducing or tasteless as the scripted barbs. But this is a surprisingly serious, affecting picture about folks you thought were past caring about. One stand-out scene with the beleaguered Queen ("I was a mechanic during the war") marooned in the wilds by a broken axle and confronting a similarly harassed stag, is liable to be a much exerpted awards ceremony clip. You're left with the suspicion that if Helen Mirren were Queen, Britain wouldn't be a democracy.

Verdict - Fascinating, funny, wicked and to the point, this is an excellent film about a week every Briton over the age of 15 will remember vividly (Four stars)

As someone who never really cared about the people when the real events were occuring I'm not sure I can muster much enthusiasm to see this, though Mirren was excellent as Elizabeth I recently.

A week every Briton will remember vividly? I guess, but I only remember the situation because I was watching Warren Beatty's film Reds at the time. A message came on screen about half way through to inform the viewers that there was breaking news on the other channel about Princess Diana's accident and the message stayed there for the rest of the film. It ruined my attempts to record that film!

[John Cope]

A week every Briton will remember vividly? I guess, but I only remember the situation because I was watching Warren Beatty's film Reds at the time. A message came on screen about half way through to inform the viewers that there was breaking news on the other channel about Princess Diana's accident and the message stayed there for the rest of the film. It ruined my attempts to record that film!

That's pretty hilarious. It reminds me of how much I used to despise weather warnings when they would appear during programming I was trying to record. A tornado was spotted barreling through town you say? The hell with it--Twin Peaks is on!

[Jem]

Is Mirren getting better and better!

[David Ehrenstein]

Saw it last night and quite enjoyed it. As time goes by the entire DianaGrief spectacle appears as nothing more than mass hysteria over a cheap tart. The Queen is portrayed here as very decent person not so much hobbled by "tradition" was attacked by this generation's lack of good manners and basic decency. Cherie Blair comes off the worst. Tony a "too clever by half" poltical hack. His speechwriter invented the "People's Princess" bit which eneded up being used toattack a Queen he's then required to save. Lots of fun towards the close with our awareness of the fact that while Her Majesty is still there, Bush's Poodle has been shown the door.

Unusual among Frears' British films (and Great Britain is his main subject) in that instead of marginals (Dirty Pretty Things, Sammy and Rose Get Laid, My Beautiful Laundrette, Bloody Kids) these are the people who live in the corridors of actual power.

If someone doesn't show up out of left field before year's end, Hellen Mirren cops the Oscar for this one.

[David Ehrenstein]

She surely was, but that doens't obviate her manifest shortcomings in other areas. Nor does it deal with the mass hysteria that greeted her death.

Had she been a truly "smart operater" she wouldn't have gone near the Al Fayeds.

[colinr0380]

Lots of fun towards the close with our awareness of the fact that while Her Majesty is still there, Bush's Poodle has been shown the door.

Unusual among Frears' British films (and Great Britain is his main subject) in that instead of marginals (Dirty Pretty Things, Sammy and Rose Get Laid, My Beautiful Laundrette, Bloody Kids) these are the people who live in the corridors of actual power.

With this and The Deal in the can it makes me wonder whether Frears is going to do Blair's entire career - I could see the next film being made about the Bush relationship and the war on terror, then a final one on Blair's troubles at home with Brown popping back up to end the series! It would be fascinating to see the guy playing Blair get slowly more haggard over time as we leave his golden age, even if current events look too contrived even for a feature film!

I don't know if this is in The Queen but if it isn't we could start the next one off with the Millennium Dome and have Mirren reappearing and having her arm nearly torn off by an over enthusiastic Blair.

Maybe scenes of him sitting in his living room in his pyjamas watching a tape of his people's princess speech and drinking a bottle of gin - while Cherie is upstairs signing house papers!

If this scene came later on as Blair was being forced out it could be a tape of Thatcher's leaving and Cherie doing an
Enron-style paper shredding bit of business upstairs!

I think your marginals comment is interesting since The Queen became more marginal that she ever was during Diana and recovered only a little since the post-crash period and resulting hysteria and perhaps showed that people could tolerate her while she wasn't a part of their lives, but when she came to the forefront and people after Diana seemed to be forced to have to take a pro- or anti-monarchy stand that there wasn't much enthusiasm for her (or at least her successor!)

I think this could be a major theme in any future films, since a lot of slack has been taken out of the system of society and people are being forced into polarising black and white opinions - the most obvious example is the Bush 'you're with us or with the terrorists' speech, but I see it all around in other aspects of life. People aren't allowed to express general approval or disapproval but have to 'love' or 'hate' things. In a way it would be interesting if the films do become a series to see it backfire on the government of the society.

Of course Blair is proving now that creating divisions to become the leader of a selfish society can backfire when you want people to care enough about you to sacrifice themselves for the cause.

I don't know if this would apply more to any future Blair film than The Queen but I wonder if its about the awakening of someone who thought they seemingly had all the power and control that they've actually just sealed themselves off from outside dissent through a combination of lackeys and manoeuvering, ambitious back-stabbers.

Call me shallow (!...) but she brought something to the world the Royals could NEVER do - glamour.

And sex scandals! I don't think I could forgive her for forcing me to imagine Prince Charles having sex........and then if that wasn't bad enough Prince Charles having sex with Camilla!

But apologias for the queen, not to mention her totally dysfunctional family are a bit rich, certainly to this colonial. As for Diana - the spectacle of this woman rising from a totally disengenuous bimbo to a very smart operator in a very sharp learning curve was - to this witness - enthralling

What actually was Diana's background? It seems like the media tried to portray her at the time of the courtship and marriage in Hollywood romance terms - a pretty working-girl plucked from obscurity off the streets of London (like you could be! ) and whisked off to a life of glamour. So being portrayed as a bimbo would only help the image even more making her a modern day Eliza Doolittle.

But I also heard her family had Royal connections, albeit obscure, which could suggest she was one of the first Royal attempts in the modern age at an image managed media icon, too good to be true and aided and abetted by the press, and one which ironically blew up in their faces when she wanted to do her own thing?

I suppose the main question I have about the film is this: Does Elton John sing that bleeding song again?!

[David Ehrenstein]

Diana was indeed "an image managed media icon," and part of her success was her awareness of that fact. Thus the whole soap opera of the Royals hating her because she was more popular than they were (ie. the biggest publisexual of all-time) carreid on beyond the grave. To top it off there was that disgusting speech by her low-life brother Earl (who some in the U.S. press thought was an actual Earl!)

The Queen is of course a work of artifice but in the wake of the Dianagrief circus it's a refreshing blast of relative reality.

[kinjitsu]

In Sunday's New York Times: ‘The Queen' Tries to Get Inside Elizabeth II's Mind

[Jem]

Love to see Criterion release a Frear film.

Maybe 'The HIT' ?

[David Ehrenstein]

Don't forget Bloody Kids -- his first masterpiece.

[gubbelsj]

After three seperate attempts upon driving into the Hillcrest neighborhood here in San Diego to catch this film, my wife and I finally managed to squeeze in this afternoon - the previous shows had all been sold out by showtime. I hadn't expected it to draw such crowds, but can now see why, and the audience was enthusiastic. A great ensemble piece, and amusing throughout. To these American eyes - albeit one who lived in London for a year and remains a committed Anglophile to this day (ie, The Housemartins, Meantime Brewing's London Porter, Philip Larkin...) - the candor and satire was striking, if droll. How's this been playing over the pond? Is the sight of Queen Liz lying in bed or muttering "bugger all" enough to raise hackles beyond the most reactionary / traditional lot? (believe it or not, there were gasps in our audience from time to time...)

And James Cromwell is deliciously nasty.

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight and greatly enjoyed it. Frears manages to find both the ruthlessness and sympathy of the Queen of that era (and Mirren really knocks home a great performance), while balancing Blair's self-interest, self-preservation, political aspirations and sympathy for the monarchy. The supporting cast is equally strong.

For any Anglophiles, was/is Charles really that afraid of being assassinated? I found that to be a weird aside within the film.

[MichaelB]

Speaking of DVDs the only versions of Prick and Laundrette are completely atrocious faded Pan and Scan horrors from region 4.

Since Laundrette was shot in 4:3 and intended for television (it only got a theatrical release following an ecstatic reception at early screenings), how was it panned-and-scanned? And, more to the point, why?

[colinr0380]

For any Anglophiles, was/is Charles really that afraid of being assassinated? I found that to be a weird aside within the film.

Perhaps he will tell us in his video diaries.

[colinr0380]

An interesting Guardian Online article who say they have gotten the story from Variety:

Everyone remembers 2000 as a bad year for Al Gore, which indeed it was. But it was also the beginning of the end for Tony Blair - that, at least, would seem to be the gist of the final part of Peter Morgan's Blair trilogy, which was announced this week. According to Variety, our national wonderscribe has started work on a follow-up to The Deal and The Queen, two films in which Michael Sheen's ultraslick Blair got one over on those who threatened to come between him and the hand of history: in the first instance, Gordon Brown in the days after John Smith's death; in the second, Elizabeth II in the days after Diana's.

The new film will focus on the challenge posed to Blair by George W Bush's, ahem, victory in the 2000 US election and the PM's fateful decision to heave the whole weight of his then-credible premiership behind a man widely considered to be politically naïve and dangerous, not to mention illegitimate. According to producer Andy Harries, "Peter sees this as a pivotal moment when the special relationship between Britain and America changed" - which puts it squarely in line with much of Morgan's other work.

[nyasa]

For any Anglophiles, was/is Charles really that afraid of being assassinated? I found that to be a weird aside within the film.

He's obviously a target, though I've never heard of it as being the dominant worry in his life. In fact, his reaction to an apparent assassination attempt in Australia in 1994 is a superb example of the British stiff upper lip. A shot is fired, a man is wrestled to the ground within feet of him, and Charles merely fiddles with his cuff-links.

[flyonthewall2983]

There was an attempt on his and Diana's life at a Duran Duran concert, on the day I was born.

[zedz]

There was an attempt on his and Diana's life at a Duran Duran concert, on the day I was born.

Not bad, as alibis go.