THE QUEEN

2006

5/10

DIRECTOR: Steven Frears

NOT A PART OF MY COLLECTION

Will we be adding this our collection? No

I had been wanting to watch this since it was produced, but had not gotten around to it. So, on Christmas Eve, it appeared on TV and  I watched, hoping to gain some insight into the events surrounding Diana’s untimely death in 1997, and a day which most of us share as one which we remember where we were.

But, in the end, it failed to engage me, seemingly plodding from one plot point to the next with little drama. Though Helen Mirren was fantastic as the eponymous Queen, as was Michael Sheen’s, Tony Blair, I was far less convinced by the likes of James Cromwell as Philip.

Some films of this sort can draw you into to the drama, characters and events of the subject, helping you feel part of it, as if this was a window into the private side of that public world, but sadly, this wasn’t the case. And as for the final thesis that Blair’s relationship with HRH was forged by these events and that he would have made impassioned speeches about how hard done to she was, I would find to be a little whimsical, though I could be mistaken.

I was ultimately left disappointed.