The Queen (2006)
Saturday, 05 May, 2007 07:04:13 AM
Extra Details: IMDB
›› We reviewed the Blue-Ray
Movie Mad Review:
The other day I finally decided to check out the hype surrounding `The Queen', I was fortunate to have this movie on Blu-Ray and sat down to enjoy.
Stephen Frears' The Queen, written by Peter Morgan (co-author of The Last King of Scotland) and starring Helen Mirren, is a glittering, compelling, solemnly anxious news comedy about the week in late summer, 1997, when Tony Blair, fresh in office as new-Liberal Prime Minister, "saved" the British royal family, or saved it from itself, when Lady Di died in Paris.
Partly the Queen, Prince Philip, and Prince Charles, all in their own ways, loathed Diana for what she had done to them, which the public, conditioned by the mass media to adore her, could not know about.
Partly the Queen wanted to shelter the boys, Diana's sons, from the noise of publicity, which would only aggravate their grief.
Partly, and perhaps most of all, she was being the way she was raised, keeping things to herself, maintaining the immemorial English stiff upper lip.
Tony Blair reluctantly taught the Queen to see their absence of public response to the death, her insistence at first that it was a "private, family matter," was a disastrous policy that had to be reversed.
Diana had skillfully manipulated the media to form an image of herself combining Demi Moore and Mother Teresa. And she was still associated with the royal family, and appeared as wronged by them.
You don't turn your back on that. You eat humble pie and play catch-up. But a monarch isn't tutored in such strategies.
No flag flew at half mast over Buckingham Palace, because that flagpole was used only for the royal flag, to show if anyone was home, and they were all at Balmoral, being private in their grief, avoiding publicity, and protecting the boys.
`Mirren' is witheringly cold toward Tony Blair, all foolish smiles on his first official visit to the Palace. (Blair's played by Michael Sheen, who's experienced at this game.)
As Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian, "Mirren's Queen meets him with the unreadable smile of a chess grandmaster, facing a nervous tyro. She begins by reminding him that she has worked with 10 prime ministers, beginning with Winston Churchill, 'sitting where you are now'.
As put-downs go, that's like pulling a lever and watching a chandelier fall on your opponent's head."
But when Blair sees how Elizabeth's coldness and invisibility is angering the fans of Lady Di ? the media queen, the "People's Princess" -- alienating her own subjects en masse, he steps in and persuades them to leave Balmoral and look at the thousands of flowers for Di piled in front of the Palance with their humiliating notes; then deliver a "tribute" to Di on TV.
This movie is ultimately kind to Blair and to the Queen. It makes us feel sorry for Elizabeth, whom Blair comes to defend (against some of his cockier associates, not to mention his wife) with ardor.
The Queen, which is dignified, but contemporary, shows where the Brits are now, and the effect of Lady Di. QEII, like QEI and Victoria before her, has had an extraordinarily long and successful reign, half a century (obviously Mirren is younger than the actual Queen.)
For all its ceremony and noise, loneliness and wit, mostly The Queen simply tells a story, the new story of English royalty at the end of the twentieth century. It was a story worth telling, and it's told well.
I expected to be bored of `The Queen', but found it quite interesting and never once felt bored.
I thought `James Cromwell' as Prince Philip is absolutely excellent, and is sadly over-looked due to the hype with `Mirren's' flawless performance.
All in all, I feel anyone can watch and enjoy `The Queen', and I will sometime watch this again.
Picture quality and sound are excellent as expected, but nothing really jumps out on this Blu-Ray disc which isn't visually stunning.
Worth Watching ?
Definately worth watching at least once for everyone!
DVD Features
Making of The Queen featurette
Commentary from director Stephen Frears, writer Peter Morgan, and British historian/Royal Expert and author of Majesty, Robert Lacey
Worth Owning on DVD ?
Not sure, probably not, but I am glad I bought it rather than go to the movie! Its not a big screen movie!
Our Rating:
4 out of 5.
