Review : The Queen

We normal mortals are always fascinated by royalty. This is a movie which questions that fascinating institution in the backdrop of the death of Princess Diana.

To put the storyline simply, the movie details out the reaction of the British royal family to Diana's death in a car crash in 2000 and how they are forced to accept public reaction. In the course of this stream of events, a series of issues are highlighted -

• the hypocrisy of the royals : it is OK for Charles to have an affair, but not OK for his wife to be upset about it. The stiff royal upper lip and silences need to be preserved. The Queen's husband takes the children out stag hunting to stop them from learning of Diana's death.
  
• the relevance of royalty : when Cherie Blair questions the role of the monarchy versus the privileges they have. The government is elected by the people but reports to the queen.
• The pressures of privilege : the queen is forced to react when she is severely criticised by her people for not sharing their grief!!
• What defines a royal : When Charles time and again asserts that he is a `modern' man while his parents are from the `old school'.

There are also the interesting sidelights when a Labour Prime Minister (Tony Blair) has to report to the entity he sees no value in - The Monarchy - and how he changes his opinion about the Queen. The interesting play between the royals and the elected government - who is the custodian of the people and their interests, the `Queen bends knees to the Prime Minister' headlines when he forces her to react to the public outpouring of grief for Diana.

But as I said, all these are just highlighted/touched upon in the movie. There is no attempt to explore any of these ideas or focus upon them. While from one point of view it is commendable that there is no attempt to judge and the judgement is left to the viewer, from another point of view the movies comes through as lacking depth.

I would believe it is definitely worth a watch but wouldn't rate it brilliant, because finally this movie is about an interesting side issue in the UK but has no relevance to the greater part of the world. I am also not sure that Elizabeth Mirren's portrayal of the Queen deserves an Oscar.