The Queen
2006: Stephen Frears
PG13 – 103 minutes
Vault Rating: 7.5
Video Vault Rule No. 2: Oscar nominees are always worth a look.
Once in a while you can skip a movie that is nominated, say, for best costumes, but by and large, Rule No. 2 is tried and true.
Case in point is today’s feature, “The Queen.” Using the period of Princess Diana’s death and the rise to power of Tony Blair in England, director Stephen Frears opens a rare behind the throne window into the royal family and particularly into the character of Queen Elizabeth II.
The Royals are often fodder for tabloid press and television around the world and never have they been more so than when Diana, the pretty commoner, entered into and was subsequently ruined by their world. Even the recent anniversary of Diana’s death made headlines the world over. It is as if the royal family lives in a unique soap opera and some people cannot look away.
Here, though, one gets a much more balanced view. The queen, seen dealing personally and politically with the death of Diana and the huge outpouring of public sentiment for her, is painted in the cold colors of suffocating tradition and a corresponding emotional isolation.
To say that Queen Elizabeth (Helen Mirren, in an Oscar-winning role) hated Princess Di would be too broad a stroke but not far from the mark according to today’s film. That she loved her grandchildren to the point of warmth is perhaps all she could muster.
A young Prime Minister Blair (Michael Sheen) plays a huge part in accurately sensing the public mood for Diana and guiding — well, dragging might be the best description – the Queen to a proper public response.
“The Queen” is full of the stuff that makes a “British film” popular. The royals live in grandeur at the public’s expense and just a trip through the settings of the film gives us much to look at. Vault was most impressed by a kind of “Remains of the Day” look at some of the key servants that surround the royals. The true face of the queen seems to show most when she is dealing with, say, a groundskeeper at a country estate or, most often and most sadly, when she is alone.
Vault has seldom paid much attention to the travails of the royal family, but this film provides an interesting, even intimate, view into their unique world. “The Queen” draws you quickly in, commands your attention, and leaves with a proper bow. It is an excellent British drama.
Though Vault doesn’t go in for the police procedural, we seem to accept such fare better when it is couched in the main character of a journalist. Jake Gyllenhaal portrays San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith in the true to life story of the hunt for the notorious Zodiac Killer who terrorized the San Francisco area in the 1960s and ’70s. We’ll touch on director David Fincher’s fine, scary film next time …
Oh, and in case you were wondering: Video Vault Rule No. 1: Beware of films with numbers in the title.
And until the Steelers win one for the other pinkie finger … Enjoy!