Film Review: The Queen (dir Stephen Frears, 2006)

This is a sensational, outstanding film from director Stephen Frears, the man who brought us The Deal (2003), also featuring Michael Sheen as Tony Blair. Queen is all about one week in the life of HM the Queen and Tony Blair, shortly after he came to power in 1997.

Sheen is quite simply outstanding in this film, spot-on as Blair in his early days as Prime Minister. His uncanny resemblance to Tony Blair should keep him in work for life. We see him anointed as Prime Minister by Helen Mirren, with his idiot, fruitcake wife Cherie Blair giggling in the background like a schoolgirl. The mannerisms, the gait, the speech are Blair personified.

Later on, in his early dealings with the public and the media, Sheen is perfect with Blair's silly, meaningless, distracting moving of his arms and hands everytime he speaks, as if it somehow contributes to communication.

Likewise, Helen Mirren has delivered possibly her finest ever performance. There are a lot of close-up, intimate shots of Mirren's face, at point-blank focus, capturing the inner self of the Queen. A lot of the action takes place up at Balmoral, in the Scottish highlands, and there are some spectacular shots of the dramatic landscape.

There are many, many fine performances in this film, particularly James Cromwell as an unremittingly grumpy Prince Philip, and Mark Bazeley as the media/PR guru and professional northerner (and Burnley man) Alistair Campbell, the man who writes the speeches (he coins "People's Princess) and runs the media side of things. A sort of Rasputin of communications.

One of the themes of the film is how the media and newspapers in particular work; there are lots of front pages, reviewed, seemingly dictating how the funeral of the moron, bimbo-extraordinaire Diana should be staged.

There is a lot of hunting in the highlands, lots of Land Rovers. It's quite charming how the Queen prefers an old banger of a car over a new one and you learn more about her such as when she was a mechanic in the British Army during the war.

I'm not quite sure of the significance of the hunting and stag motifs. The Queen comes face to face with a stag and later on covers up her disquiet when she learns it has been shot. Something to do with crowns and stalking, probably.

When, in 20 years time (if the world still exists), they come to make the film of how Blair took Britain to war, Michael Sheen can draw on Hitler for added authenticity.