The Queen

Watched The Queen this evening, something which I’ve had in my DVD “inbox” for a few weeks now. I’ve always heard good things about it, and now I know why. It’s a totally brilliant film, describing in great detail the tragedy of Princess Diana’s death from the perspective of the royal family and the Blair family through their interactions with each other. There’s even a bit of comedy thrown in here and there with Prince Philip and the Queen Mother.

However, what I like most about it is the portrayal of reprehensible Cherie Blair and the equally dreadful Alistair Campbell. The former is made out to be a total bitch whereas the latter is made out to be a sleazy, slimy reprobate; both highly accurate character portrayals in my opinion. Blair himself was portrayed as a “good guy”, which he was (at the time at least), as indeed was the Queen herself in the end. I don’t envy the position she was put in; all she knew was establishment protocol, even if said protocol didn’t quite fit into the modern world. You can’t blame her for the actions she initially took, or rather, didn’t take. Nothing like this had ever happened in the history of the monarchy.

I’ve no problem in admitting that the film brought a few tears to my eyes, not only because of the plight of the Queen, whom I’ve always admired, but also because it reminded me of the event itself. While I didn’t think much of Diana, she didn’t deserve her fate and the nation’s reaction to it was very moving. It certainly had my Mum in floods of tears and she totally hated her.

If you’re British then you really have to watch it, whether you’re a monarchist or not. I expect the Americans quite like it too.