Movies
byDaynaPapaleo
Despite aggressive efforts to rid ourselves of it a couple
hundred years ago, we remain fascinated by royal rule, envisioning automatic
entitlement, gobs of money, frequent enemy-smiting, and leisurely days spent
lolling about in an ermine cape while pointing a jewel-encrusted remote at the
palace flat-screen. Two movies in current release ponder what might have gone
on inside the heads that wear the crown, one queen not yet finished with her
story and the other’s ending among the most notorious ever.
Stephen Frears’ surprisingly
gripping The Queen stars Helen Mirren as
Elizabeth II and primarily focuses on what went on behind the scenes during
that week in the summer of 1997 following the death of Diana, Princess of
Wales, that led to her lavish state funeral. As the film opens, however,
Elizabeth, nearing 50 years on the throne, has just received a mandate for
change in the form of new Prime Minister Tony Blair, who she refers to as “a
modernizer” (not a compliment) and whose anti-monarchy wife describes the
members of the royal family as “freeloading, emotionally retarded nutters” (not much of a compliment either).
Public reaction to Diana’s fatal car crash in Paris forces Blair, as
played by Michael Sheen, to drag the House of Windsor into the 21st century.
“This is a private matter,” the queen informs Blair from her estate in
Scotland, both unwilling to allow the palpable grief of her subjects to alter
longstanding custom and incorrectly gauging the relevance of a woman thought by
her and protective husband, Philip (James Cromwell, gloriously out of touch),
to be somewhat of a nuisance. But the legendarily cheeky British tabloids are
having a field day with the queen’s apparent detachment, leaving Blair, on the
job only a few short months, to placate his constituents and force the royal
family to face the possibly dire consequences of their (in)actions.
You’ve seen the images — Elizabeth addresses the world on live TV,
Diana’s boys trudge behind casket, Elton John warbles in Westminster Abbey —
and you know how it ends, but The Queen‘s
appeal lies in the virtuoso performance of Mirren as
Elizabeth, a master class in understatement. We don’t need to see the tears
plop from the eyes of Mirren’s queen to know that
she’s in turmoil; she makes it very clear that her priorities are her grandsons
and her country, though not necessarily in that order, and firmly believes that
the way it has been done is the way it should continue to be done. And that’s
where Sheen’s Blair comes in, determined to forge a new path but also
increasingly awed by how this formidable woman shoulders the burden of
tradition. History may show that by modernizing the House of Windsor, he may
have actually saved it.
Parallels could easily be drawn between the former Diana
Spencer and the Marie Antoinette illustrated by writer-director Sofia Coppola:
both married into royal families as teenagers, both grew to be glamorous
trendsetters despite — or because of — unhappy unions, and both died
violent deaths at a tragically young age. But the only comparison to be made
between the meaty narrative that is The Queen and the vapid Marie Antoinette is that I stayed put for the former but fled
the latter with a mere 20 minutes to go.
Kirsten Dunst capably plays the
doomed Austrian, brought to Versailles
at the age of 14 to marry the future Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman), then only 15 himself. She quickly learns the formalities of
court, but it takes her some time to adapt to her trifling life of parties,
fashion, sweets, and scandal. It doesn’t help that her only job — to produce
an heir — is thwarted by her husband’s apparent disinterest in his marital
duty. Eventually, after more extravagance, heads roll.
There was probably something I should have gotten from all
this, but the only thing I did get was bored. Coppola’s apparent disinterest in
depth allowed her to concentrate on her visuals, so there was plenty to look
at; costume and production design are staggeringly sumptuous, so maybe
superficiality is the point. But the supporting cast was thoroughly
entertaining: Judy Davis as Marie’s prim head of household, Rip Torn as the
lusty Louis XV, Danny Huston as Marie’s brother who counsels the new king on
inserting Tab A into Slot B, Shirley Henderson and Molly Shannon as court
gossips, and especially Asia Argento as the decadent
Madame du Barry. When that Italian girl exited the movie, this one also began
to consider the possibility.
The Queen (PG-13), directed by Stephen Frears,
is now playing at The Little and Pittsford Cinemas.
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2006.
