The Queen

Sometimes, what I haven't posted is more surprising to me than what I have. Today's case in point: this amazing film by Stephen Frears with an arch script by Peter Morgan and a terrific cast. The Queen is dead, two days after bringing in a new Prime Minister—her 15th (the first being Churchill) and a short time after celebrating her 70th year on the throne. After years of short-reigned British royalty, Elizabeth II gave a reassuring continuity to a nation going through post-imperial crises, and she managed to walk the edge of being Her Majesty and, contradictorily, Public Servant. Self-sacrifice and Privilege rarely go hand-in-hand, but she did it, and did it well.

Written at the time of the film's release.  Re-published on The Queen's.

 

"Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl, but she doesn't have a lot to say"

Sir Paul McCartney

 

And another Beatles quote might be appropriate here, as well. George Harrison's horrified appraisal of Beatlemania: "We gave them an excuse to go mad." Surely that's how

the Royals must have felt seeing the outpouring of grief generated by the death of former Princess Diana over the week that this smart bitchy little film covers. The tone and volume of the crowds that surrounded Buckingham Palace, fueled by the predatory tabloids, approached hysteria and went well past the accepted levels of decorum practiced by its inhabitants. Flying the flag at half-mast for Diana? They hadn't even done it for the death of the King! The idea! There's a telling line QEII says in bewilderment: "But she isn't even an H.R.H.!"—a lovely combination of formality and informality within the Royal Family. But the film has its own opening quote, from Shakespeare--the one half-mocked by Jack Nicholson in The Departed--"Uneasy lies the head...etc, etc." But, in this day and age it can be asked, "Who wears the crown?" 

Is it the Queen, cosseted in formal procedure and pomp, restricted in her powers and budgeted by the government (the first scene of the movie has an arch little discussion between her and a portrait artist regarding democracy and the in-coming Labor party of Tony Blair. "You might not be allowed to vote, ma'am,* but it is your government." "Yes...it is," she replies, smiling at the constancy)? Is it the fledgling Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) who must bow and scrape to the Queen, but who uses whatever power he has to influence her actions? Is it Blair's eager-beaver, though cynical, staff, micro-managing and creating press-releases and agendas that sometimes frustrate, while bolstering the image of, the new PM? The Queen's consort, Prince Phillip, blusters about what is proper and how he'd do things (assuming he was in charge), and son Charles, dithering and deferential (there's a lovely moment as Charles enters a room where James Cromwell, playing Phillip--pointedly crosses his arms without even acknowledging that he knows his son is in the room), tries to sway the Queen emotionally and by proxies. Or is it the rabble with their devastated faces and the endless supply of flowers that becomes a memorial and a substitute for any public display from official sources? 

Then there is the late Princess herself, seen only in vintage news footage, at times clowning, at times vulnerable...and at times, with a look like she's viewing the proceeding with a knowing satisfaction. 

One wonders how the Royals themselves would see this film**...no doubt, as an affront to be taken in stoic, stony silence. Yet, one can understand their actions, and even have some sympathy for their dilemma, while also wanting to shake some sense into them.

The Queen is a fine, gossipy movie, with a literate script***(whether any of the things depicted behind closed draw-bridges is anyone's guess) by Peter Morgan—he also wrote last year's The Last King of Scotland, top-of-the-line performances led by Helen Mirren (who has the canny knowledge to know she's playing two roles: Elizabeth and an eerie "Elizabeth-as-Monarch," and, yes, she'll win the Oscar for Best Actress)**** and a direction by Stephen Frears that's smart and canny. The last shot is the most telling. Frears leaves us with an image of the Queen walking in her immaculate formal garden--her unruly Pomeranian dogs jumping and bouncing and using the facilities while Elizabeth pays no mind to the chaos.

Long Live the Queen.

 

* And make sure you pronounce that correctly. We're told that it is "Ma'am" as in "ham," not as in "harm." One of the conceits of the film is to show the "accepted" ways to present oneself to the Queen--always a prescribed way, no more and no less--surely a main reason for the atrophy the Windsors displayed in not responding to the public's reaction.

 

**I read somewhere in the Golden Globes coverage this morning that the Queen told Mirren "someone finally got (playing her) right."

***There's a funny scene where Blair, flush with his efforts to influence the situation starts to push for his own agenda. Elizabeth will have none of it, and warns her PM not to be too complacent for his crisis will come when he least expects it. It took every ounce of restraint to keep from yelling "Yo, Blair!" at the screen.

**** She did.

 

Post-script 02/07/07: Slate has quite an informative interview with director Stephen Frears

Philomena

I Dream in 8MM Home Movies
or 
Driving Miss Philomena

Stephen Frears' film of Philomena, from Steve Coogan's co-written screenplay (he's also the second hand of what is basically a two actor piece) feels awfully precious in the viewing, even if the story, overall, is a fascinating detective story about faith and family, over the repressive dictates of a religion giving lip-service to both.

Martin Sixsmith (Coogan) is an ex-reporter, recently exited from Tony Blair's Labour government over an internal squabble. At a loss over what to do next, and considering writing a history of Russia (which meets with indifference whenever mentioned), he's approached at a party by a bar-maid, who tells him the story of her mother, Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), who has been searching fruitlessly for the whereabouts of her son, born fifty years earlier. Lee was a good Catholic girl who got pregnant, and her Irish father, in anger and shame and for bringing dishonor to the family, gave her to the nuns of the Rose Crea Abbey for the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who put her to work, delivered her child, provided an orphanages for that child and required Philomena to work for the nuns for the next four years to repay her debt.

At some point, her son, Anthony, was adopted, and never seen again. And Philomena is haunted by him fifty years on. Sixsmith is cool to the idea of "doing a story" on it, dismissive, in fact, saying it was "human interest"—the kind of work reporters do "about weak-minded, ignorant people for equally weak-minded, ignorant people.'  

But, nobody is acting too excited about that Russian history.

Sixsmith agrees to meet Philomena and finds her a little dotty, a little marmish, and not very sophisticated. But, he's got interest in her story, so he takes a trip with her to the abbey to, once again, try and get some more information about Anthony and what became of him. All records have been destroyed in a fire, they're told, and Sixsmith finds the abbey more than unhelpful in giving an information.

It isn't long before they get some information through Sixsmith's government connections in the UK and the U.S. To say any more from that point spoils the movie, and that's the best part of the film. The actors are great, their characters at points supportive and contentious, clashing personalities on almost any topic.

But, it feels slight, and vaguely insulting to the Philomena character. In particular, there is a long episode in an airport where she prattles on about a book she's read that Sixsmith would consider "trash" ("Oh, look, it's a series!" he mocks.) It's supposed to be whimsical and charming—isn't she a delight and isn't he a curmudgeon—and the movie has nowhere to go at the end but reiterate the same joke, rather than to say something meaningful or profound at the end.* It's a movie for "blue hairs" at the matinee, and aspires to nothing more. But, the performances are terrific, the story interesting, and Frears' direction serviceable, except for some lily-gilding of flash-backs and other things that might be in the service of "over-explaining."

Of all the Best Picture nominees, this is the one that feels a bit out of place.

Dame Judi Dench and Philomena Lee

* Actually, it does, but T.S. Eliot said it: “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time.”