The Queen

'œAll hail the great Helen Mirren,' said Lou Lumenick in the New York Post. The veteran British actress will attract Oscar attention for impersonating Queen Elizabeth II in this brilliant docudrama about the aftermath of Princess Diana's death. Mirren delivers 'œthe performance of a lifetime' as a woman struggling to keep a stiff upper lip while her subjects demand a more public show of grief. Eventually she did cave, said David Edelstein in New York. But not before many Britons begin to question why they keep a monarch around, anyhow. 'œMuch of The Queen has the quality of a disaster film in which idiots ignore the volcano up the road spewing ever-larger gobs of lava.' The rest shows new Prime Minister Tony Blair, winningly played by Michael Sheen, attempting to convince the queen to let her carapace melt. He's teaching her to think of politics as showbiz, said J. Hoberman in The Village Voice. Mirren never lets us think her queen might get weepy over her estranged onetime daughter-in-law. But slowly we see it dawn on her that all the public wants is a performance. Miraculously, Mirren and director Stephen Frears make us care about what's essentially a public-relations crisis. 'œWhether or not Tony Blair actually saved the British monarchy, Frears has made it seem so and even worth doing.'

Rating: PG-13

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