The Queen
More than anything else, this film is a tribute to the acting prowess of Helen Mirren who takes one of the most difficult living characters to portray, Queen Elizabeth, and gives us a real woman with all her limitations and experience. 
The pretext of the movie – an exploration of the week between Diana’s death and funeral and the backlash against the monarchy could have been very dull indeed but Peter Morgan gives us a cracking script of how old establishment meet new Labour and new Britain and Elizabeth realizes that things must change whether she likes it or not. Her values of constance and dignity, which she believes the people seek in her, must give way to compassion and flexibility in order to meet the clamour from the public for a show of sympathy over her daughter-in-law’s death. 
Stephen Frears creates a film which somehow embodies all of this – based on real events and makes it lively and interesting. It is not, in my opinion, a world beater but a very sensitive and clever piece of film making. Michael Sheen as Tony Blair 
is very good as is Helen McCrory as Cherie, although she and some of the minor characters come across as a little one-sided. Philip, the Queen Mum and Charles do not get the best treatment but then perhaps they really are as limited as the movie suggests. In the end though, the acting prize and all the subtlety go to Mirren and I daresay the real Queen should be honoured that she has been given such a detailed and respectful characterisation.
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