2.25.2007

The Queen shoudln't have touched me


as intensely as it did. After all, I'm an American, a New Yorker, and never particularly cared about the Royal Family. But of course director Stephen Frears does it again, maintaining his role as the most versatile director working today. Who else could direct The Grifters, High Fidelity, and (my personal favorite) Dirty Pretty Things? These are movies so far from one another that you'd never even guess they came from the same director. And The Queen fits the mold, or lack thereof. By focusing on a period of about seven days (though there's an epilogue), Frears gives the film, about pivotal days after the death of Princess Diana, an immediacy that I've never seen regarding Queen Elizabeth II (she is the second, right?). Here's wishing Steve, and everyone else involved, luck at the Oscars tonight.

Luckily I had the chance to watch this in a theatre full of (mostly) British kids. There were a lot of jokes I would have missed otherwise, and also a lot of bits that were funny to this audience. I think seeing caricatures of the Royal Family for their whole lives made some of the signals unintentionally funny. A chair pulled out behind the Queen as she stands, immersed in a phone call from Blair, proved funny to this crowd, as did Blair (circa '97 in the film) stating his main goal as education. Sure, it was highly fictionalized, and "just a movie," as my English flatmate Chris reminded me, but I came away with two things. One was just how out of touch the Queen was, and Two was just how special Lady Di turned out to be. In 1997, when the movie took place, I was eleven years old. I remember wondering just what it was about Diana that made my mom watch her funeral on live television early in the morning, and wondering just as well why my brother chided her for it (he was 14). And I'm still not sure what my mother had invested.

But for the English people, she was the one down to earth member of the Royal Family. To have a Queen that's actually a figurehead must be hard, but for that Queen to believe she's in charge is even more inconceivable to me. But Diana wasn't like that; she seemed to connect to and believe in the people and for that I respect her. The scene where it's suggested that the Thames Bridge be used for Di's funeral, to the dismay of the Queen Mum, whose own funeral is set to take place there at some point, was one of my favorites. It is one of the moments where it's suggested that Diana has a lot more immediacy to the greater UK than the proper members of the Royal Family. That disconnect is at the heart of this film.

Prince Philip exclaims at one point that the guest list for the funeral consists of "soap stars and homosexuals," and all I could think was that this is exactly what matters most to today's British society. Sure, I'm not British, so who am I to say, but just take a look at the Oscars and you'll see that America is already there. What am I getting at? Fuck if I know. But check out The Queen. Also, Children of Men was pretty great, but it's not even nominated, so my money's on The Queen for tonight at the Oscars. Or at least on Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen. Oh, what's that? He didn't even get nominated for Best Supporting Actor? Oh, nevermind then. Hand that shit over to...wait... seriously now, why wasn't he nominated?

1 comment:

Bana said...

When Princess Diana died I was completely obsessed with it. But that shouldnt come as a surprise.