Helen Mirren in The Queen |
As the holiday season approaches and the old year rolls into the new, it's natural to think about movies in terms of their messages. Whether filmmakers like it or not, we, the audience, often see movies in terms of the particular viewpoint they seem to espouse.
One interesting movie in 2006 was The Queen directed by Stephen Frears of Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and High Fidelity (2000) fame, and written by Peter Morgan who also co-wrote this year's The Last King of Scotland.
It's difficult to tackle themes of the British royal family without getting embroiled in a pro-or-con debate, and many would have gone to see this drama no doubt looking for evidence of a stand one way or another regarding the monarchy. This was one of the challenges facing the Frears movie.
The other is that dramatic depiction of present-day royal characters can all too easily slip into farce. The continued presence of an institution based solely upon lineage without even the pretense of meritocracy, clashes badly with the rest of modern society. Our response, as an audience, is often laughter. Serious dramatists, perhaps aware of this fact, shy away from the subject.
The Queen is therefore a unique undertaking in the sense that, although aware of the humour of the situation, it is a serious drama. The Queen avoids the sense of kitsch that TV movies have happily fallen into through a knowing, graceful touch not dissimilar to that employed by author Sue Townsend in her 1992 novel The Queen and I.
The whole idea of the royals, the carefully constructed scenes tell us, is ludicrous, and they are the only ones who don't seem to realize it.
The drama begins with Princess Diana's car accident. As the family elders --Prince Philip, Charles and the Queen herself-- cluster in front of the TV in their Balmoral estate in Scotland to hear the latest news updates, we become aware of an odd dichotomy. They are both like us, and not like us. The death of someone they did not get on with, but whose life was indelibly woven into theirs, hovers over them like a shadow. We are drawn into their worried frowns as they try to work out what to do about it.
But there the similarity between "us" and "them" comes to an end. The Queen protects her grandchildren by asking the royal staff to take the TVs out of the young princes' rooms. Prince Philip offers to take their minds off things by taking them hunting on the royal estate.
When Philip and the princes kill the beautiful stag they have been stalking, the Queen feels an irrational sense of loss. She asks the gamekeeper to show her the animal's carcass. Charles, meanwhile --in this depiction seems a little more human than his parents-- has gone to France to view Diana's body.
Back in Scotland, the woman who spends her life bottling up her emotions is suddenly tearful as she gazes up at the dead beast hanging from a chain. The parallel is clear. Like the British people she is supposed to represent, the Queen can express feelings only vicariously.
When Diana died, much of the population of the UK were suddenly in the thrall of emotions they had spent a lifetime suppressing. Interviews revealed that many had been unable to shed tears over deaths of parents or siblings --real losses that affected their lives in a concrete way. Now suddenly they were shedding tears freely for a woman they had never met, nor were likely to meet.
As Diana was to the populace, so, in The Queen, is the fallen stag to the emotionally repressed monarch.
The Frears movie tells us that if the royal family represents anything in Britain, and beyond, it is this tradition of "noble" restraint.
Many will find the depiction of Tony Blair in The Queen far too sympathetic. The movie shows Blair, played by the affable Michael Sheen, taking on the role of Head of State only reluctantly, and because the royals were too wrapped up in themselves to give any statement to a mourning public. This may be partly true, but it's also the case that Blair was happy to pounce on this role from day one of his tenure as prime minister. Media comments about his "presidential" style --with walkabouts outside his Downing Street home-- predated Diana's death.
Whether too sympathetic or not sympathetic enough for audience tastes, the real life characters are so beautifully played --especially Helen Mirren in the title role-- that the sense of the comical is easily guided to where it's needed --into a thoughtful consideration of the sheer craziness of royal institutions surviving into the 21st century.
Paul Butler is a St. John's-based writer. His latest novel is NaGeira. His website is www.paulbutlernovelist.com
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