In one of the most subtle yet daring movies of the year, director Stephen Frears ("Dangerous Liasons," 'The Grifters") examines the death of Princess Diana with a unique and thoughtful prespective in his drama "The Queen." There's no conspiracy theories and no move-of-the-week, soap-opera treatment of the iconic Diana here, just a razor-sharp reflection on the the institution of the royal family--particularly Queen Elizabeth II--the power of the media, and the need for idol worship in our celebrity-obsessed society.The entire movie takes place during the week after Princess Diana's untimely death in a car crash in Paris and before her public funeral several days later. Queen Elizabeth's initial instinct is to have the family retreat to Balmoral Castle so they can deal with her death privately. The only problem is that her subjects--the distraught citizens of Great Britain--want the Queen (played superbly by Helen Mirren) to honor Diana publicly. As global media coverage of the public grief over Diana's death intensifies, the newly appointed Prime Minister Tony Blair becomes involved, helping to persuade the Windsor dynasty to change public preceptions that the royals are unfeeling, out-of-touch, and perhaps unnecessary to the future of the United Kingdom.
Such plot details may not sound fit for anything other than an average History Channel documentary, but what Frears does so brilliantly is dissect events to show how people in power deserve to be judged--and also that they deserve to be granted a moment of grace now and then. Over and over again, he cleverly illustrates that everyone who knew Diana was in some way complicit in the way Diana was revered in society as well in the way that she tragically died.
It is not without a touch of prophetic irony that Tony Blair is portrayed as somewhat of a hero in this tale--someone with huge public popularity and a talent for speaking to the "commoners." In fact, Frears shows Blair foreshadowing his own current unpopularity in Britain (in part because of his support of President Bush and the Iraq war) when he tells the Queen that what is happening to her in the press will undoubtedly happen to him one day as well.
And then there is the cinematic imagery of the stag that the Windsor family stalks while staying at Balomoral Castle. The way they ruthlessly hunt this animal as a distraction--only to have it killed by a stranger instead--smacks of a huge metaphor for the way they treated Diana while the papparazzi ruthlessly tracked her every move and played a hand in her demise.
Even the weeping throngs of people keeping vigil outside of Buckingham Palace seem to be eyed with a bit of disdain through the lens of Frears' camera, because they are blind to Diana's faults, and blind to the fact that their idol worship of Diana created the demand for the constant media coverage of her every move.
"The Queen" will surely rack up some Oscar and Golden Globe Awards during the upcomng red carpet season, and it has now firmly landed as one of the leading candidates for my Top Ten List for 2006.
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Definitely one of the best films of the year! I interpreted the stag's symbolism a little differently, as a metaphor for the private feelings/public performance tension that Queen Elizabeth enacts. When she encountered the stag alone in the wild, she admired it as a wild thing of beauty and shooed it away to save it from the guns of Philip and the young princes. After the stag is shot, when she goes to view its body, she is obviously privately mourning, but she still does what a Queen is expected to do: she asks the gamekeeper to convey her congratulations to the guest who shot the stag. This is not a woman who shirks her "duty," even when her private feelings lead in the opposite direction--and, ironically, her strong belief in duty is what makes it difficult for her people to relate to her in the wake of Diana's death.
The stag/Diana parallel is interesting, though.
can someone email me and tell me when this will air on television or how I can get he movie??jaci_vaughn@yahoo.com
The one character not developed in this film is that of Diana herself. While the "people's princess" remains the icon of superficial popular culture, the Royal family knew a very different character up close -- the one behind the facades of glamour and pseudo-compassion.
Both Diana and her brother, Charles Spencer, suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder caused by their mother's abandoning them as young children. A google search reveals that Diana is considered a case study in BPD by mental health professionals.
For Charles Spencer, BPD meant insatiable sexual promiscuity (his wife was divorcing him at the time of Diana's death). For Diana, BPD meant intense insecurity and insatiable need for attention which even the best husband could never fulfill.
Clinically, it's clear that the Royal family did not cause her "problems". Rather, Diana brought her multiple issues into the marriage, and the Royal family was hapless to deal with them.
Her illness, untreated, sowed the seeds of her fast and unstable lifestyle, and sadly, her tragic fate.
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