Queen

Review 1 of 4

Brastacks writes:

4of 4 Stars

What else can I say? Another master film. This is truely a classic character study movie. It was surprising to see how the common people acted around the queen.She is a human after all!!Another great script with the right actoress. This movie will not appeal to trailer trash people, but to the critical eye. Well worth a trip to the cinema.This movie has just now come to Europe.

Mar 26, 2007 05:19:10

Review 2 of 4

Messiah91 writes:

4of 4 Stars

The Queen, with its rambling and episodic structure, is pretty amazing.

Following the week after Princess Diana's car crash in 1997, the movie follows the royal family's rigidity in maintaining public sobriety (or running from the public altogether). That is unthinkable to the public! She was a Princess! She should be mourned by her Queen! The movie however, in all of its wonderous glory, won't be dragged down by public opinion. Peter Morgan's script battles the subject on both sides, often letting the characters debate the issue instead of ourselves. He does it so well in fact that we get two perspectives: the Diana that donated to charities and loved American society, and the Diana that sought to throw everything the crown stood for back into Queen Elizabeth's (Helen Mirren) face.

Witty and revealing, the movie never settles and would have in fact been pulled into several different directions at once (and consequently apart) if not for the magnetic performances at its center. Helen Mirren, who one an Emmy earlier this year for her portrayal of the Virgin Queen, doesn't play flashy or play eccentric. She plays a woman in the midst of a breakdown and she plays her without pause. Contrary to public opinion she grieved for her son, Prince Charles, and her two grandchildren who had lost their mother. She assumed that "as was the British way" everyone would leave her to her quiet mourning. She was wrong. The tides of opinion turned on her and swelled quite suddenly and without the help of new Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) she would have been crushed. Quite literally she was in the midst of a breakdown of the most valued of English institutions: the Monarchy.

The movie suggests numerous things about the crown, most of the probably true, and director Stephen Frears is a man of a suprising amount of talent who takes forays away from the center of the movie that are far from boring or tedious. In a movie that sprawls and rambles it ultimately comes down to one thing: humanity, and the people blessed with it.

Mar 3, 2007 15:28:06

Review 3 of 4

nevyr writes:

4of 4 Stars

Al 4 stars for Helen Mirren.

Feb 16, 2007 04:24:15

Review 4 of 4

MYKL writes:

3of 4 Stars

I saw this film with my girlfriend in Dublin. I was only partially interessted in seeing it after I was blown away by the witty and utterly interical masterpiece 'Volver' the privious week.While I was very much impressed by the uncanny resemblance of Helen Mirren to Queen Elizabeth (it was actually really freaky, she looked the absolute mirror image of HRM),I felt the storyline lacked the exciting rhythm I was expecting to experience.There rumours, before the film was released here that the queen had a part in Diana's shocking death and the message in the advertising billboards and posters very much led people to think this way 'One story shocked the world, another was never told'.This was very much not the case when the film reached our screens in Europe.It instead told the story of the queens reluctance to agree with the public's demands for a state funeral for Diana and for Queen Elizabeth to air her condolences in public (in my opinion not the most imaginative storyline).However due to the mesmerising performance from the lead the film manages to impress. While the Film is called
'The Queen',the story is very much centred around Princess Diana. I think most people were hoping for an insight into the queens life and what she is about, as she is a very illusive character and rarely appears in public. We were given only a snippet. Throughout the film you see Helen, sorry 'The Queen' writing in her diary but the director chooses not to give us any information on what she might be writing into it. Overall if you are looking for something factual and and realistic, somewhat exciting and very British, then may I recommened 'The Queen'. (And do you want to know the best thing about this film)... It clearly displays Tony Blair for what he really is...
A WEASEL

Sep 28, 2006 03:41:29