The Queen

Directed by Stephen Frears

Miramax Films





This fall, the most engrossing conclusion to a movie features a frumpy old woman reading a speech full of sentiments she barely feels on national television.

Stephen Frears’ “The Queen” is a singularly persuasive attack on the English monarchy. It contrasts the attitudes of Queen Elizabeth II—an old woman out of tune with the feelings of England the week after her former daughter-in-law Princess Diana’s death—with the spin-tacular performance of her recently elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen).

Elizabeth (Dame Helen Mirren, “Caligula”) has always been able to connect with the British people. She’s known their feelings and has been able to communicate—she claims, “No one knows the British people better than I do.” Now her country mourns a former daughter-in-law she couldn’t stand, and demands that she join their grief.

In contrast to the Queen, The Prime Minister lives a simple life in a house with his children and wife, Cherie. He is among the people, in the city, better able to understand their needs.

Despite the policy arguments about media relations, this film is no wonk-fest; despite the condemnations of the monarchy, Frears creates recognizably human characters out of everyone but Prince Phillip. It is a continually involving look at the human costs associated with public service and experience, whether one chooses a post (Blair) or is born into it (Elizabeth).

Elizabeth becomes a deeply flawed but sympathetic woman unable to make the decisions to properly lead the state. Frears structures the piece like a trial, allowing the viewer to render his own verdict from pieces that can lead to only one conclusion. Henri Matisse used to use a similar device of leaving details blank for the viewer to fill-in mentally, thus creating a more personal and powerful connection than the complete canvas could have achieved.

It is a testament to Frears’ skills as a director that the narrative can be quiet at times, without losing the viewer’s interest. Frears’ most direct preparations for this film are his “Dirty Pretty Things” and “Dangerous Liaisons.”

The former is a political movie that never forgets the demands of narrative momentum and the latter illustrates the liabilities of experience. Frears also adds a soupcon of the yuppie cute-wit he displayed in “High Fidelity” in Blair’s characterization.

Frears makes two particularly surprising narrative choices. There is almost no reminiscence about Diana’s importance, which contrasts strangely with the mourning masses. The effect of this is to put the viewer even further into the Queen’s confusion at the scale of the grief. But the viewer realizes how much of a mistake the queen is making much earlier than she does, increasing the strength of the case against her.

To illustrate that the costs of continued power will affect everyone, the final conversation shows a chastened Queen explaining to Blair the speed at which the populace turned against her. She then declares that Blair must realize that, though he seems overwhelmingly popular at that point, “it will happen to you too Mr. Blair. Suddenly and without warning, it will happen to you.” Blair’s recent decision to step down early next year in the light of spiraling opposition is a fitting epilogue.

In the midst of attempts to get Elizabeth to show sympathy, she declares she will continue with “restrained grief and private mourning. That’s what the rest of the world has always admired about us.”

It’s a profound misunderstanding of the modern world. The people now look up to the “chorus line of soap stars and homosexuals” that mourned gracefully at the funeral. As Elizabeth finally changes, she truly understands Shakespeare’s line, quoted at the beginning of the film, “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

Bottom Line: This film intelligently and entertainingly explores a previously untreated passage in the Diana mythos. It presents a balanced portrayal of the enigmatic Queen Elizabeth II that, paradoxically, can induce only one conclusion: off with the head of state.

­—Reviewer Scoop A. Wasserstein can be reached at wasserst@fas.harvard.edu.