This Is Not a Review of The Queen Either
I know it’s been a few days and I don’t mean to sound… What? Bitter? Negative? Jaded? I don’t know. Anyway, The Queen. Let’s talk about The Queen. Here in Britain – its country of origin you’ll remember (like you could forget) – The Queen was moderately well-received. Well-received like, for instance, an interesting TV drama with a slightly cheeky real world theme. Like a drama featuring, say, Will Ferrell as George W Bush or Susan Sarandon as Hillary. Something like that. Nobody thought it was worthy of an award, though, least of all an Oscar (the film was beautifully reviewed by Lance Manion here at newcritics.com).
It was received, in fact, like other films by Stephen Frears. Frears has made lots of films. He’s an honest and unorthodox filmmaker whose body of work blends topical TV with indie movies and Hollywood in a thoroughly modern and thoroughly disarming way. He just loves what he does and seems to have no particular interest in the celebrity treadmill or the first weekend’s gross or whatever (although he sort of sheepishly admitted to having had his Oscar night tux made by someone or other – he just couldn’t bring himself to say who).
So then the bloody film started to acquire gongs – American gongs mainly, including a wheelbarrow-load of Golden Globes. The British media went collectively batshit and the British movie industry, puppy-like and quite clear where its duty lay, started throwing awards at the film too – awards it would instinctively have withheld. BAFTAs followed. You know the rest.
So, the question is: did snooty British critics ignore The Queen because it came from a director known for newsy shot-on-video TV productions and then decide it was brilliant after they saw the Americans salivating?
Or did inexplicably royalty-fixated Yanks adopt an essentially ordinary film because it featured a gutsy Shakespearian dame pretending to be HRH? We’ll probably never know but, whatever happened, I think it’s probably a good sign that The Queen didn’t win the truckload of statuettes it was sort of expected to.
Add New Comment
Viewing 2 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks
(Trackback URL)