The Prague Post
March 13th, 2010
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    star Gift Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Night & Day

A crowning achievement

The Queen is an inside look at the Windsors
Cinema Review | Search restaurants | Archives

By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 14th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
A funerial response. Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears' The Queen.
When it was launched in 1986, the London newspaper The Independent let it be known that the royal family was hardly news as far as it was concerned, and that its editors weren’t about to give up space to cover the births, couplings and rehab failures of the Windsors.
The approach appealed to educated middle-class readers for whom the royal family was primarily a bit of stored pageantry, like a retro cotillion gown or scrap of tinsel, occasionally taken out but of no practical use. Indeed, the queen’s annual televised Christmas message, delivered in her singular croon, simply signaled that Mary Poppins was next up on the BBC and the British people could all settle in to enjoy anew Dick Van Dyke’s very individual interpretation of Cockney.
Then there was a car crash in Paris one night.
The Queen

Directed by Stephen Frears
With Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory and Sylvia Syms

Stephen Frears’ new film, The Queen, concentrates on the week in the life of Britain between the death of Princess Diana and her rather gaudy funeral at Westminster Abbey. But it was a week that forever changed the way the world viewed the British — and how the British looked upon the monarchy. The outpouring of grief in the wake of Diana’s death was as shocking to many as the accident itself. Overnight, the “finest hour” stiff upper lip of legend was replaced by tremulous public weeping.
It was a reaction that caught the old guard off-guard, particularly the royal family, who appeared to far too many of their subjects as callous and uncaring. Though it is hard to imagine now, 10 years later, the person who seemed to speak for the nation was the new prime minister, Tony Blair.
Frears’ film begins with the general election of 1997, when Blair and the Labour Party swept to victory. The day after the election, Blair (an eerily twinlike Michael Sheen) arrives at Buckingham Palace to present himself to the queen (Helen Mirren). There’s a bit of drollery around the protocol (even the queen finds some of the trappings amusing), but the new PM and his monarch seem to reach a mutual understanding of how the relationship will work. Then there’s Paris, and the tyro prime minister becomes the nagging counselor to the throne, whom he fears, in the royals’ misreading of events, is in danger of toppling the ancient institution.
It sounds like the most unlikely scenario for a gripping film. And yet Frears has created a taut tale that is almost Shakespearean in tone (To grieve or not to grieve?), though the story is, at base, a domestic drama. Should the monarchy, which held little love for the tragic, self-sabotaging Diana, abandon custom and royal dignity to entertain a maudlin circus in the streets? Or should it bow to the obvious wishes of the masses and feign some sorrow for Blair’s “people’s princess” before the tumbrels are wheeled out to collect them?
Frears completely captures the mood of that strange time, utilizing vast amounts of contemporary news footage showing the hundreds and then thousands of people bearing flowers and balloons to the makeshift shrines that dotted the country.
His cast is superb. Sheen, again, is so physically and vocally Blair’s double that you easily forget you’re not watching a documentary. But it’s Mirren’s film, and the actress has never been better. Her Elizabeth II is a strong-willed woman who still possesses a wry sense of humor, though she grows icily imperious with the turbulent Blair as his politely couched demands increase. But Frears gives the queen a number of private moments, in which you can appreciate the dilemma that must have faced the real monarch. The external demands for her to redefine her time-bound duties are powerfully handled by Mirren, and her Elizabeth becomes a touching portrait of a proud but painfully conflicted woman.
The rest of the royals are grandly handled by James Cromwell (as the gruff, tone-deaf Prince Phillip), Alex Jennings (as a nervous, milquetoast Charles), and the great Sylvia Syms as the queen mum.
The crowning irony of Frears’ film is that the queen’s problem 10 years ago is now Blair’s. For someone who quickly saw the ramifications of thousands of people on the street in 1997, he certainly missed the message in 2003, when even more of them marched through London.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (14/02/2007):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Provokator
Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.