The Queen

4/4 stars

At this point it basically goes without saying that the performances in this movie are incredible. Mirren and Michael Sheen particularly stand out, but in fact the entirety of the relatively small cast is so perfect as to be nearly invisible. This, along with the most effective integration of archive news footage I've seen, makes the movie so absorbing one is tempted to take it as a represenation of reality. And of course, it is in some sense. The film examines the week following the death of Princess Diana, revealing the mourning of both a family and a nation. The realism and credibility that the film seems to bring to its portrayal of the events behind the scenes of a national crisis are quite impressive. I was reminded of The West Wing, the television series whose adeptness at that same task was one of its best qualities. This is the third film I have seen by Stephen Frears, and the second that I have found nearly perfect (High Fidelity is a classic to any music geek, 2002's Dirty Pretty Things didn't live up to its potential). The film is engrossing, it plays a subtle but intense conflict without spelling out to the audience what is at stake, allowing the humanity of the characters to take care of that. For the best film of 2006, I would probably choose the more ambitious, more sprawling, more flashy The Departed, but there is no mistaking that The Queen is a significant accomplishment.

Written August 12, 2008.