In an age when one can't swing a bat in a video store without hitting a biopic, it's easy to get sick of movies that chronicle the lives of famous people, no matter how interesting those lives may or may not have been. But once in a while, a good performance can make all the redundancy of the genre slip away and remind us why we like biographies in the first place. The Queen's Helen Mirren gives that performance.
The film chronicles Queen Elizabeth's response to Princess Diana's death, from her own personal feelings about the event to her handling of the press and the public. Through a combination of performances and news footage from the week following Diana's fatal car accident, the film centers on the growing but rocky relationship between Her Majesty the Queen and newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The Queen is well-constructed; it examines the complex relationships between its key players but always moves the plot forward and never gets boring. Sheen gives a strong performance as the Prime Minister, bringing to life a man who seems to understand his responsibility to his country better than anyone. Cromwell is nothing if not entertaining as the Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, but it is Mirren who is Queen's real tour de force.
Helen Mirren plays Queen Elizabeth beautifully, and she should, considering her experience playing British royalty. After her Emmy-winning turn as the title character in HBO's Elizabeth I, the tremendous British actress dazzles again in her role as Elizabeth II. Mirren's stellar performance gives the audience an inside look at Elizabeth's struggle with newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair, but more importantly, her own personal struggle during a week that shook the world.
