Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts film review – an elegant tribute to the Queen
Directed by the late Roger Michell, this documentary is ‘insightful, mischievous and assembled with panache’
Made by the team behind the “excellent” Spitfire (2018), this “powerful” documentary looks at another legendary war plane: the Lancaster bomber, which first saw service in 1942. And it is surely no coincidence that it has come out in the same week as the new Top Gun film, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday: “after all, the daring dam busters raid of 1943 – carried out by 19 Lancaster bombers – was unarguably the Top Gun mission of its day”. Directors David Fairhead and Ant Palmer have got the tone “just right”; they mark “the bravery and skill of the aircrew” while acknowledging that Bomber Command’s raids on German cities remain controversial to this day.
The surviving aircrew speak openly about their struggle to reconcile “their often crucial contributions to the war effort with the human toll it took”, said Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman. After the War, “people looked at you like you were a murderer”, remembers one. I am not sure you need to see this film on a big screen, but these first-hand accounts do make it worth seeing.
With its “encyclopedic detail” and Charles Dance’s “commanding narration”, Lancaster can feel like a film for war buffs and aviation enthusiasts, said Cath Clarke in The Guardian. But there’s a universal appeal in the stories of the airmen and the risks they took: 55,573 out of 125,000 of them were killed during the War. And for Dam Busters fans, there is “extraordinary footage” of the test runs in Kent of Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bombs. Yet this is not a “jingoistic” documentary, and it also records the testimony of a German woman who witnessed the aftermath of Lancaster bombing raids on Dresden: “The dead lying around in heaps. Mountains of dead people who burned to death.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Did Trump just push India into China's arms?
Today's Big Question Tariffs disrupt American efforts to align with India
-
UN votes to end Lebanon peacekeeping mission
Speed Read The Trump administration considers the UN's Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to be a 'waste of money'
-
RFK Jr. names new CDC head as staff revolt
Speed Read Kennedy installed his deputy, Jim O'Neill, as acting CDC director
-
Millet: Life on the Land – an 'absorbing' exhibition
The Week Recommends Free exhibition at the National Gallery showcases the French artist's moving paintings of rural life
-
Thomasina Miers picks her favourite books
The Week Recommends The food writer shares works by Arundhati Roy, Claire Keegan and Charles Dickens
-
6 laid-back homes for surfers
Feature Featuring a home near a world-renowned surf spot in Hawaii and a house built to withstand the elements in South Carolina
-
Twelfth Night or What You Will: a 'riotous' late-summer jamboree
The Week Recommends Robin Belfield's 'carnivalesque' new staging at Shakespeare's Globe is 'joyfully tongue-in-cheek'
-
Hostage: Netflix's 'fun, fast and brash potboiler'
The Week Recommends Suranne Jones is 'relentlessly defiant' as prime minister Abigail Dalton
-
Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly Tuttle
Feature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
-
Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!
Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town
-
Critics' choice: Three chefs fulfilling their ambitions
Feature Kwame Onwuachi's grand second act, Travis Lett makes a comeback, and Jeff Watson's new Korean restaurant