Comments on: Stop Him Before He Reviews Again! – Roger L Simon begins his Oscar season with “The Queen”

By: Linda in Texas

Linda in Texas — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 18:11:06 +0000

I saw The Queen over Thanksgiving weekend and I couldn’t agree more with your review Roger. I’ve never been a “royal-watcher” myself. It was tragic for the Brits when Diana died so unexpectedly and the film brought back to me the empathy I felt for them.

The one thing I would add to all the other marvelous critiques in the comments is that I was very impressed with the casting, not only their ability to take on the character but also their appearance. It was remarkable how much they resembled the real life characters.

By: Sissy Willis

Sissy Willis — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:38:57 +0000

The landscape as major character. . . Perfect. Thomas Hardy would approve.

By: Webutante

Webutante — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:01:45 +0000

I think it a wonderful glimpse into the family and woman we don’t often get. For me the vignettes of her outdoors, batting around in her beat-up Land Rover spoke volumes of a more human side of a woman we most often see only as Her Majesty.

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 17:57:32 +0000

So now we are supposed to fret about worthless English royals? I was under the impression that we live in a democratic republic. It is the Right’s obsessive power and hero worshipping that seems to be at work here. It shows the Right’s utter contempt for true democracy in lieus of a privileged ruling class they are working to create.

By: gina

gina — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:27:49 +0000

Far too PC for an oscar alas, the marvelous script too understated, no easy jokes for the ADD, no fawning over early death, just a few harrowing glimpses through the cracked carapace of the woman/institution under attack by a mob that could be a revolutionary mob. A great actress played this flick with the deceptive spontaneity of a champion tennis player, a Federer. Mirren never rushed a reaction or a line. She waited, considered and only then delivered the coup de grace.

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:21:48 +0000

anyone still whining about pc is so full of it. Every bigot and fool always starts his rant about how non=pc he/she is. Right wingers are the most PC of them all, criticize some crackpot TV preacher or a fascist vet and blammo: you’re anti-God, anti-Military and un-American. Quit whining about pc nonsense, when we live in a media world dominated by psycho loudmouths

By: Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 12:53:50 +0000

I agree about Balmoral, but what struck me most was the contrast between QE2 and Diana.

On the one hand you have a reigning monarch with 45 years under belt, a witness to a lot of history with not a blemish on her character, committed to palying out the role she accepted as a girl. On the other, a self-involved, neurotic little thing who does what spiteful damage she can to the institution of the monarchy. The Queen’s composure does break on a couple of occasions, but mostly all we see is the kabuki mask of royalty. That has to be a tough role to play.

Beyond that, well, the Royal men (Charles, Philip) don’t come off very well. One comes across as spineless; the other as clueless. They pale by comparison with the Queen and Queen Mother.

By: Harold Fretheim

Harold Fretheim — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 08:09:15 +0000

I have seen this movie and I know exactly what Roger means about Balmoral Castle. And this movie was about as anti-PC as could ever be imagined. A good antidote almost. By holding up the events of the week of Diana’s death we see the whole silliness of that moment.And of as queen who simply could not fathom that her people had declined to the pathetic.

By: Orson

Orson — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 07:14:31 +0000

I have not read any reviews yet, other than Rogers. But yours is a fine place to start.

Until seeing “The Queen,” I’d forgotten how righteously anti-Monarchist Labor was – or at least with Blair’s generation is. Hostile” come to mind. Thus, seeing Tony transformed into a respectful co-player reveals a kind of Baptism by fire.

It’s not as though the Royals aren’t used to being diplomats. It’s just that the world of celebrity and their media saturated ways of her then much younger people caught the Queen so unaware. THIS is what’s the astonishing and dramatic pleasure in Frears and Morgan’s film.

Perhaps we could call it a time-capsule account of “the Californiacation” of the Monarchy?

By: bdg

bdg — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 05:53:55 +0000

Excellent point about Balmoral that I had not considered. It is literally and figuratively the sanctuary of a painfully introverted woman-outside its gates, she’s under constant scrutiny. In fact, there is a scene at the Balmoral gates that explicitly dramatizes the climax of Elizabeth’s struggle as she emerges to take up her public performance.

A straightforward but amazingly sympathetic portrait of a most peculiar institution as well as the flesh-and-blueblood human being who has devoted her entire life to it.