Word: dianas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...Queen, written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears, is the fact-based chronicle of the week Diana died. At first, the royals choose to do nothing, issue no statement, betray no emotions--which, toward Diana, are pretty rancorous. Only when Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), swept into 10 Downing Street in a landslide, gently insists that a consoling word or two might be in order does the Queen realize with a shock that she is not the most beloved woman in Britain...
...happens, my prejudices or insights are seconded by The Queen. Charles (played with a dense delicacy by Alex Jennings) is the one member of the family immediately and deeply stricken by the news of Diana's death. He grieves for her, as his parents first refuse his request to go to Paris to identify the body then suggest he get there not on the royal jet but by connecting commercial flights. When the others attack Diana's skills as a mother, Charles makes pointed remarks about the love she showered on her two sons, unlike his own mother...
...Charles is also the one, as the public's demonstration of grief for Diana is mixed with attacks on the Crown, who asks aloud, "Why do they hate us?" Well, one reason is that the press has stoked antimonarchical feelings in readers who might otherwise blame the paparazzi posse on motorcycles that helped speed Diana to her doom. Another is that, having elevated Diana to heroine status even before her death, people needed villains, and her ex-in-laws were right out of central casting. Among hundreds of signs attached to flowers at the impromptu Diana memorial outside Buckingham Palace...
...first days after the death, you see, the royals choose to do nothing, issue no statement, betray no emotions. To them, the interviews that Diana gave, in which she complained of her isolation from the family, were breaches of domestic trust bordering on treason. (Diana is seen only in news footage, and the film weaves some of these TV clips into the action.) Elizabeth figures a terse silence is best - best for a discreet monarchy and best for the boys, Harry and Andrew. Prince Philip (a slyly ruthless, bullying performance by James Cromwell) wants to take the lads hunting. Right...