Feb. 15, 2007

‘The Queen’ is phenominal, but not enought for Oscar
By JEREMY KOPP
koppj@marietta.edu

I refused to watch Eddie Murphy destroy the name he made for himself in 'Dreamgirls' by suffering through 'Norbit' and I wasn't going to witness author/screenwriter Thomas Harris kill his already suffering Hannibal Lector series with 'Hannibal Rising.' So this weekend I honored 'The Queen' by seeing it a second time.

If you've heard anything about the movie, you know it's Helen Mirren's show. She's won just about every possible award an actress can win in the 'biz, and there's no doubt that she's a shoo-in for the Oscar. Every review I've read for the film praises her dead-on portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II, and given that I've seen very little footage of Elizabeth, I'll have to take the critics' word.

What I appreciate about Mirren's queen is how intense and captivating she is in an understated performance that relies on subtle, quiet mannerisms to depict a woman with an innate sense of duty to the royal family's proud history. It's a performance lacking the sensationalism of the fellow Oscar-nominated roles of, say, Judi Dench's in 'Notes on a Scandal' and Penelope Cruz's in 'Volver,' and yet it's still just as engaging.

But to say Mirren carries the film alone wouldn't be fair to Peter Morgan's Oscar-nominated script revolving around the death of Princess Diana and the royal family's reaction to it. James Cromwell is Elizabeth's husband, Phillip, who was even more reluctant to honor Diana than the Queen herself, given that Diana was divorced and was no longer a royal.

But given the public's reaction to the royal family's lack of sympathy, it's recently elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) who does his damnedest to convince the family that a proper funeral was needed to honor “The People's Princess” (recall her charitable contributions that turned her into a sort of celebrity).

The first time I saw the film over Christmas break, I expected a tabloid-fueled recount of the terrible circumstances surrounding Princess Di's death that would serve to mostly showcase the very talented Helen Mirren (see Gosford Park, The Madness of King George, etc.). But I was wrong. Instead, Morgan and Oscar-nominated director Peter Frear's offer a mature, soft-spoken account of a public figure torn between doing what she believed was right versus what those of whom she was supposed to serve felt was right.

Ultimately, the film allows the audience to decide if the Queen made the right decision; it neither condones nor commends her actions but instead equally presents both sides of the story (that of hers and Blair's). It's a surprisingly intriguing film with an expectedly impressive performance in one of the better films of the year (but don't put any money on it winning the Best Picture Oscar with 'Babel' and 'Little Miss Sunshine' in the same race).