Admit it. For about a week in 1997, you, too were wondering if even Prince William could save the House of Windsor. Turns out you were wrong, too.
The Queen reminds us of the difference between the partisan and the political. The Crown may never be partisan. We are reminded of that at the outset of the film, set on the day of the 1997 elections, as Queen Elizabeth muses with her royal portraitist about what it would be like to vote.
"I should like the chance, just once, to vote. Not the mechanics of the act so much as the chance to be partisan. "Yes, ma'am, you may not be able to vote, but remember...it is your government."
But the Head of State, symbol of the country, is an intensely political position. It is that, as much as anything else, that the Royals have been shielded from over the last half-century. Cherie Blair has it wrong: it's not a coccoon of privilege so much as a coccoon from politics. The Queen might give some advice to Prime Ministers, but these meetings are about policy more than the temper of the nation.
And yet, even then, even after Blair rightly advises Her that the nation wants something less detached at this moment, there's a sense that the Queen hasn't got it entirely wrong. During the memorial after September 11, it was moving to tears to see her sing the words to our national anthem. Had the Queen had a history of such outbursts it would have meant little. Imagine Diana doing the same an then imagine your reaction. Eh. That's nice. Bit of a lightweight, that Diana, don't you think?
Most of the focus by the American press has been on their darling, Tony Blair, saving the Royal Family from themselves, as his character says in the film. But he himself, ah, grows in office, but learning to appreciate the Royals and the unique position they play in the life of the country. He goes from being somewhat in awe of a monarch he expects to have only perfunctory contact with, to a being a staunch defender of the Queen and the institution, to the dismay of his Republican wife Cherie, who accuses him of using the Queen as a substitute mother.
Blair is also limited by his engagement in politics. As the Queen is giving her address concerning Diana, Blair marvels the Queen's savvy; "That's how you survive!" The address, of course, was about more than survival, it was about the Queen learning how to fulfill her role as national unifier in a new way. Just as the Queen is not permitted to descend to partisanship, so Blair cannot transcend it.
The casting it pitch-perfect. These are public figures, all but Diana and the Queen Mum still alive, whom you believe you know. In the case of the Royals you've seen them most of your life, and Blair has managed to pack almost as much exposure into a decade and a half of national prominence. The actors manage to disappear into their roles almost seamlessly.
It's important to remember that this is a movie, not a history. It's inconceivable that Philip would need to inform Elizabeth and the Queen Mother about the proper use of the Royal standard, although contemporary American and (evidently) British audiences need the lecture. And the Charles character displays an understanding of the public relations difficulties of dealing with Diana that it's hard to credit the real Charles with.
But the movie is indisputably Queen Elizabeth's, and Stephen Frears has managed to create a sympathetic and complex portrait of her, at a time when it was easier to reduce her to a cardboard villainness.
