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As a
cinematic analyst of power, sex, money, and
deceit, and the relationships therein, the
director/screenwriter Stephen Frears has few
peers. Think of his early oeuvre, films such
as The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons, My
Beautiful Laundrette—and now, his latest,
The Queen. A brilliant examination of the
privilege and entitlement of the royals, The
Queen also posits an explanation for the
celebrity-besotted world in which we now
find ourselves members. Consider that the
addition of Princess Diana into the royal
family, even if only temporarily, heralded
the demise of a certain kind of rectitude
and diplomacy which, as manifest in the
behavior of Queen Elizabeth II, had long
held sway in England. Say goodbye to
standards and hello paparazzi.
With her mediagenic personality and her
photogenic features, Diana was nearly
antithetical to the Queen who has long
espoused an icy distance as the best means
of ruling an unruly, football-loving nation.
While the Queen has always worked to insure
that her gloves cover her wrists and that
every helmet-haired curl is in place, Diana
represented the Age of
Nothing-Too-Sacred-For-Public-Consumption.
(Colonic irrigation, anyone?) The changing
of the guard, indeed.
And Frears does an excellent job at
capturing the Queen’s befuddlement. This
royal monarch cannot fathom how the world
has changed—when she has not. The isolation
is self-induced and complete. She lives her
life according to the vow she took as a
young girl: to serve her nation until death.
And nothing shall stand in her way: not her
first-born heir who has come of age—and
least of all, his flibbertigibbet wife.
Helen Mirren does an uncanny actualization
of someone most of us know best from
photographs. Queen Elizabeth might still be
living—but for most of us, she exists as if
preserved in amber. And it’s a testament to
Mirren’s acting, and Frears’ nuanced
direction, that this Queen becomes also
something of a doting grandmother—one who
would bring a Tupperware container of lamb
stew to a picnic. Furthermore, her husband,
wickedly portrayed by James Cromwell of Babe
fame, fondly calls her “Cabbage,”—as in
“Move over, Cabbage, I’m coming to bed.”
“Cabbage” as an endearment, and the woman
who tolerates it—such a detail goes a long
way toward humanizing such a model of frosty
decorum.
What a shame then that the Queen was
apparently unable to have exhibited more
warmth to her daughter-in-law. But then The
Queen shows a woman who has long been more
inspired by a thirteen-point stag than the
common touch of the “people’s princess.” In
the end, The Queen is a story as old as
parents and children, and the inevitable
passing of the torch. And yet, as Fears’
film shows, this Queen is not going “gentle
into that good night,”—not until she’s good
and ready.
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