Sitting for her official portrait as the opening titles for The Queen appear, Helen Mirren sums up England's Queen Elizabeth in one perfect, wordless look. Looking directly at the camera — and at us — Mirren's Elizabeth also seems to look right through us, a regal entity at an imperious remove from the hoi polloi and yet somehow as strangely dowdy as the least of us. Look hard enough, though, and you'll detect just the slightest hint of whimsy in the monarch's expression, a trace that in a mere mortal might be mistaken as self-deprecation.
That gulf between royal privilege and democratic realities is at the heart of Stephen Frears' The Queen, a film that chronicles a controversial private struggle gone all-too-public in the aftermath of the death of England's Princess Diana. The film's dramatic conflict revolves around the tradition-bound Elizabeth's efforts to avoid paying proper respect to Di, the much-loved, rule-breaking "people's princess" — a conflict personalized as a mano a mano between the Queen and Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen). On a broader level, the movie becomes about a life-or-death battle between a monarch and her people.
Frears relies a bit too heavily on archival newsreel footage of Diana and pals (there's a lot of Di Love going on here), but the film generates emotional power and suspense through a subtle, elegantly crafted script (by The Last King of Scotland writer Peter Morgan) and solid performances all around (particularly from Mirren). The movie might well have benefited by getting its hands dirtier and maybe even its teeth bloodier (which would have meant more lines like the one where the royals are called a pack of "freeloading, emotionally retarded nutters"), but there's still more than enough here to engage us.
The Queen (PG-13) Stars Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings and Sylvia Syms. Opens Nov. 3 at local theaters. 3.5 stars
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2006.