The Queen

First, we must always remember that a movie is not historical truth. Never is. A conscientious movie may try to be a close approximation, but that’s all it can be. Sometimes they don’t even try. I believe they tried here, what I know of events seem to have been presented accurately, and it rings true, but you know certain choices were made for dramatic purposes. But we obviously can’t know what was said in a private phone call between Tony Blair and Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (you didn’t buy that “Windsor” alias, did you?).

Second, portrayals of famous people in the movies are never true. Sorry, but that’s how it is. They can only be the writer’s best guess as to what is actually going on in the head and in the life of the celebrity. For all I know, Betty R may cavort through the nighttime rooms of Balmoral in a nightie and athletic socks, Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” blasting out of her iPod. Maybe she and Phil go down to the Tower and play hall hockey with the orb and scepter before a night of B&D and hot, sweaty love.

However, it’s much more likely that she is exactly as she appears to be in her public persona: an almost terminally reserved, uptight, duty-bound relic of the glory days of Empire. (Her Mum, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, was born a year before Queen Victoria died.) It is plain that she likes being Queen—perhaps too much, else why would she let her oldest son become such a useless twit at 60?—and if she can hang on another 9 years she will surpass Victoria as the longest-reigning English monarch ever.

And taken on those terms, this film is a real masterpiece. It is funny, and heart-breaking, and a wonderfully thoughtful meditation on the role of inherited privilege in the 21st Century. Helen Mirren is so good in this role it hurts. She’s 61, ten years younger than Elizabeth at the time she’s playing her, and I think it’s just great that her role previous to this one was as Elizabeth I. She will be hard to beat at Oscar time.

No point in going into the plot, I’m sure you know what it’s about. A couple idle reflections, though …

As an American I did not feel the intense anguish the British felt over Diana’s death. I was sad, sure, she was too young, but I have no emotional investment in the royals. But the Brits, sure do! There has been heated debate for some time over the very existence of royalty, with some people wanting to abolish it entirely. Here’s my two bits, for what it’s worth coming from an American. I think they should abolish the House of Lords and all that lesser-nobility entitlement baloney. Hire some actors in white wigs to sit in the Lords and shout “Bully!” and “Hear, hear!” and “Jolly good!” and let the public in to witness it. Charge admission. It’ll pay for itself. And that’s the key here, I think. People grouse that it costs the British taxpayer £30 million/year just to pay for Betty S-C-etc. in the style she has grown up accustomed to. But I think they get their money’s worth, and more, in tourist dollars. I mean, other than the British Museum, what possible reason could anyone have for going to London except to see all that royal stuff? The climate sucks, the food is awful, they drink warm black bitter beer, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. In fact, I think they need more royal family, and most of all, more scandal. That Parker-Bowles bitch alone has kept thousands of Fleet Street reporters from debtor’s prison. Periodically, they could throw a royal to the wolves, like they did with Diana. Should keep them going well into the next century.

And I was stunned to see the Queen driving alone in her Land Rover on a country trail in wildest Scotland. No helicopters hovering, no MI5 spooks or Secret Service equivalent banging along behind. Does she really do that? Then I realized she was on her own grounds at Balmoral, which apparently is 50,000 acres … but still. How well can you guard 50,000 acres? Forget about Al-Qaeda, what about the IRA? Of course the Brits have always seemed to be less security-wonky than Americans (10 Downing Street looks to me like a ridiculously easy target), and this was pre-9/11, but still … we guard our totally superfluous (and detestable) vice-president better than that. (Don’t believe me? Try to find his residence at the Naval Observatory in D.C on Google Earth, and you’ll discover it’s blurred out. Not even the White House or the CIA is blurred out …) If nothing else, I’d think the Queen would need protection from a stray shot from Prince Philip, who apparently lives to “stalk,” which is British for blowing away beautiful stags. Shades of Dick Cheney …