The Queen

It's taken me forever to see this, as it came to arthouse theaters here last fall, and it premiered in Puerto Rico the weekend I left (I honestly thought it would be interesting to see both The Queen and The Last King of Scotland with Spanish subtitles, but alas ;-) ), and now it's migrated into multiplexes. I would have posted a comment to the previous thread that included this film and some comments on it, but I've done that before to old posts and the comment seemingly goes into oblivion (except that Brian might notice it).

I loved it. Now that's not to say I think it's a great film, and I can see watching it over only in some edited version that removes all the extraneous documentary footage of Diana, because I was getting very tired of that. But as a sort of "The West Wing" meets the Royals, I thought it was very well done.

My viewing companion had a more mixed reaction, while agreeing that it was good, but was too turned off by further dwelling on the death of Diana. She had thought that the plot sounded like something completely uninteresting to her, but sometimes the plot doesn't matter if the film is good enough and you can just admire the acting and the craft of the film, but in this case she thought the plot did matter.

Maybe I have a bit more fascination with the royal family. While all the hub-bub over the death of Diana caused irreparable damage to my opinion of what was then supposed to be serious news media (Time magazine had her death on their US cover two weeks in a row!), I was also someone who had gotten up early to watch her wedding live on television.

And while I'm against a flag-burning ban amendment to the Constitution, I also complain about businesses and organizations that bother to fly the flag but can't seem to do it properly--something that comes to light most starkly when we have any situation calling for flags at half-staff. I guess that's just the old Cub Scout in me. And so there was one moment in The Queen that definitely had me, when there was all the back-and-forth over the flag at Buckingham Palace.

At first while watching the film I thought, oh, yes, as with Forest Whitaker and The Last King of Scotland, Helen Mirren is giving a performance that, while not her best, is certainly showy in just the right way to get an Oscar. And by showy in this case I obviously don't mean the sort of visibly straining neck muscles and throbbing temples bit, nor do I mean Nick's observation that she's showing off how well she renders internal conflict, but rather that she's playing the reigning British monarch in a front-and-center starring role, and doing it rather believably. But as the film went on I came to think that she was actually doing such a subtly good job, and I found myself particularly affected by the two scenes in which she's looking at the flowers left for Diana.

When was the last time the roles of "king" and queen both won Best Acting Oscars the same year?

The contrast between the lives of the Queen and Prime Minister Blair also left me to ponder if we're really better off in the US for not having a monarchy, for we tend far too much to elevate the President to that role, when we might be better served by having someone in that role who possesses no real power, and leave the business of running the country to someone who is not entitled to the royal treatment. Of course, we could take the route of those countries that elect a figurehead head-of-state without having a monarchy....