I don't suppose there are many people of a certain age who do not remember vividly that incredible week at the beginning of September 1997 - the week Princess Diana died. Particularly I remember the complete shock, followed by an outpouring of public grief never known before and probably never likely to be known again in our lifetime, and the hostility vented against the Royal Family for not showing their emotions and instead opting for the 'stiff upper lip!'
I was never a big Diana fan, although I did feel her death was incredibly sad. Neither am I a staunch monarchist, but I was very interested to watch 'The Queen' to see how it was possible to portray those incredible scenes in a realistic and factual way. It was interesting to note that one of the things that this film did not do, at least in my mind, was to come down on one side or another and I think that all the events were depicted in a very honest way.
The key players in this film are obviously the Queen herself, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, the Queen Mother and Tony and Cherie Blair. Princes William and Harry are not shown at all which I think was a very good
decision as even after all the time that had elapsed (the film was made in 2006) it might have been seen as an intrusion on their grief.
I thought that Helen Mirren played the queen superbly and she is shown in quite a sympathetic light. She seemed to have the looks and the mannerisms off to a 'T' although I wasn't quite so convinced by the voice. It must be so incredibly difficult to play a real person and particularly hard to play the monarch of the country. Through Helen Mirren's performance you could really see the queen grappling in her mind to do the right thing. I couldn't help wondering whether the Queen herself would have approved of that casting.
I felt all the other parts were played pretty well too, although Prince Philip (played by James Cromwell) and the Queen Mother (played by Sylvia Sims) were a little more like caricatures rather than real people. I thought Alex Jenning's portrayal of Prince Charles was particularly good and he also had the voice and facial expressions spot on. Michael Sheen gave a very good performance as Tony Blair although I didn't think he had quite the right look!
There were a lot of personal conversations between the different royals and obviously it's difficult to decide how truthful and accurate these might be. Probably some of the more official discussions are based on actual records at the time and provided a very good insight into protocol and expectations of the royal family - none of which were really appreciated by the general public at the time. The insistence that the Royal Standard should be flown at half mast at Buckingham Palace was one such example and in the film it is explained that this is only flown when the monarch is in residence and was not even lowered when George VI, the Queen's father died. It also goes to show just what great concessions were made in those few days leading up to Diana's funeral.
The other great player in this film is all the actual news footage from the time. These punctuate the main action in the film starting before Diana's death, and following each day's news as the funeral became closer. The scenes of all the masses of flowers that were laid for Diana seemed as awesome as it did at the time. The accolades from heads of state such as Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela mixed in with ordinary people who so obviously loved Diana is very emotional and powerful. It brought back a lot of the emotion that I remember feeling at that time and I have to confess that I spent a lot of time watching the film in tears as well. It was also fascinating to watch a younger and somewhat shaken Martyn Lewis read the news and announce to the nation that Diana had died.
I felt that on the whole this was a very successful film and it did well to present events in a non-biased way. It handled the emotion of the time alongside the struggles of one family who thought they knew what was the right thing to do but suddenly discovered that the rules had changed. As I said at the start, it is a fascinating film to watch if you remember the events at the time, and I fail to see how anyone can be unmoved watching it. As it is now in my DVD collection I am sure tht it is a film I will want to watch again, and I very much enjoyed watching it this first time.
There are a few extras on the DVD. The main one is a feature about the making of the film. There are a lot of interviews here and it is interesting to hear how the cast members worked to get the likenesses of their characters. There is also a production photograph gallery. These are only stills from the film and I didn't find myself wanting to go through all of these. There are also cast and crew biographies but these are pretty much just paragraphs of text so again I didn't find these very exciting.
The DVD can be bought from Amazon for only for only £4.98 and at that price it's definitely worth buying for the collection!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2003 - Drama - Director: Michael Winterbottom - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton, Om Puri, Jeanne Balibar
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Well written review, I thought this was a fabulous film with amazing acting.
carcraig 25.03.2008 21:57
My brother lent me this but I haven't watched it yet...good review, Caroline xx
plod591 25.03.2008 15:07
I enjoyed this but found the fact that Blair was shown in a good light, pretty hard to swallow, bearing in mind his mrs's dislike of the royal family. I am sure she would have put him in his place !! LOL.
Following the death of Diana the 'People's Princess', the Queen (Helen Mirren) and her ... more
family remain hidden behind tradition and the closed doors of Balmoral Castle. whilst the heartbroken public becomes disillusioned with their Queen's absence, an inc...
![The Queen [DVD] [2006]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78135622.jpg "The Queen [DVD] [2006]")
Mar 24th, 2008
very helpful by (100%):
