The Queen

Rating: M - Contains Low Level Offensive Language.
Duration: 97 mins.
Genre: Drama, Biography.
Actors: Helen Mirren, James Cromwell, Michael Sheen, Sylvia Syms, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam.
Director: Stephen Frears.
Release Date: Available Now.

Synopsis
The Queen attempts to go behind the scenes and portray the struggle that the British Monarchy had in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana and the influence that the new Prime Minister, Tony Blair had during the brief time.

The Reality
The Queen is an interesting look at an emotional period of time in recent British history. In it’s portrayals of the behind doors life of both the Royal Family and that of the new British Prime Minister, it is quite fascinating.

It tries to show just what an influence this young Prime Minister had in ‘saving’ the Royal reputation, but without allowing Mr Blair to have his ego inflated too much.

The Royals for the most part are shown as pompous, spoilt little brats, which for the most part misses the point. The triumph of the movie is in it’s portrayal of the Queen, who is shown as down to earthy as possible, considering her upbringing, and paints her in quite a likeable light.

The biggest problem with the movie however is in its portrayal of Diana.

In an effort no doubt to please the prospective audience, Diana plays little part in the movie, other than that of the greatest loss England has ever had to endure.

There is a moment in the movie where mention is made of how difficult Diana was to deal with – outside of the limelight – but this is used to put shame on the Royal family, rather than to shed light on the reality of Diana.

It would have made a much more balanced and compelling movie I believe if this statement had been looked into a little more deeply, and possibly showing the viewer the reality of who Diana was when the press weren’t around would have given the move more of a credible foundation.

Other than that, The Queen turned out to be an enjoyable, moderately paced drama, and not the total bore I was expecting.

The Look
The affluence of the Royal Family is shown with great splendour, and makes a great backdrop to the Royal bashing that takes up a great part of the movie. The relative ease and comfort is easy to see, but fortunately there are a few scenes in the movie that do make the Royals out to be human.

The biggest issue I have with the whole affair is the over use of news footage from the time. This is fine for when the scene is of people watching the news, but when we are watching for the most part, re-enactments, the occasional news footage, with it’s grainy lack of quality distracts, especially the all too frequent clips of Diana doing stuff that has no bearing on the story.

Food for thought
If you’ve turned your back on your chosen family, should you expect them to be there to comfort you?