Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

solsticetux I must be the last person on earth to see this movie. Saw it on Netflix and decided to jump in. The story is established: Diana dies and the British go into more mourning than they did over the deaths of Winston Churchill or Freddie Mercury. OTOH, the Royal Family is saying "what the eff" is this all about. Very slowly, the film follows the efforts of brand new PM Tony ("call me Tony") Blair as he tries to nudge the royals into showing some public face of grief over the tragedy. Helen Mirren is OK I guess as the queen. Really, who can judge whether her portrayal is accurate. It's a rare Mirren movie where she leaves her clothes on, but I guess that would have been gratuitous nudity. You want to strangle Prince Philip, so that was a good portrayal b/c that is how you were supposed to feel. The Blair character was nauseating, but so was Blair in real life so "check" on that one. The dogs were good. Well, now I can say I saw it.

chaswe-28402 Cunningly put together: real footage spliced with suppositional fictional dialogue and events. Mirren and Cromwell are exceedingly well cast, and convincing, if slightly one-dimensional. It's the way the parts are conceived and written. But Charles, Blair, Cherie, Alistair and Queen Mum, unfortunately come across as little more than cartoon caricatures. This is the problem with the movie as a whole: it seems rather shallow and superficial, as if its subject were really Diana, and not the Queen.Stephen Frears is nevertheless a subtle, multi-layered director. His early production, "The Hit", is a masterful example. This film, like that one, is certainly memorable, and has a trick of making you reflect and think about the implications of the events taking place. There would appear to be a distinct advantage of having a hereditary figurehead, in effect a President, with no political power, who is brought up and trained to behave in a responsible, representative manner. This is not a position suitably occupied by a ditzy celebrity type of bimbo, going all out to court popular publicity. The alternative to the tradition evolved in the UK over the last thousand years is currently transpiring across the pond. An amusing and telling remark was made, to the effect that Blair's charisma might possibly also one day evaporate.

hjbuhrkall I have never been following the royal British family very closely, so I don't really remember how the situation was back then, in relation to the untimely death of Princess Diana. The actual reaction of the individual members of the family is difficult to assess, compared to the real history, but the overall reactions of the royal institution are spot on. This stubborn, old-fashioned, cold & cynical clinging to tradition and protocol that; inhibits the family from reacting like human beings is both outdated and outrageous. And it offends me grossly. The queen, Elizabeth II, is shown as a woman, raised by these beliefs and hence very correct, and seemingly emotionally detached from reality. It is difficult to hold it against her though, when you look at the company she's in: married to Prince Phillip who almost aggressively protects these protocols, and the child of Queen Elizabeth I, a firm believer in the old-ways. The only one in the Queens family that questions these traditions is the Queens oldest son, Prince Charles. Regrettably the relationship shown between mother and son might just as well have been that of strangers. The only one, (with the power to do something about it) that opposes of this system, is the newly elected prime minister, Tony Blair, who throughout the film tries to salvage the situation for the royal family.The story is already well known, so the outcome couldn't be a surprise, but it still pleases me to see how the prime minister and his staff finally gets through to the royal institution, and how the Queen finally chooses to go against tradition, and partake in the public mourning. She redeems herself as a human being, showing a Queen in touch with her subjects, instead of the detached cynical woman showed first.

Richard Harvey I sat down to watch this in the happy expectation I would enjoy it. It's a riveting story, a well- crafted film and with a screenplay that has its nuanced moments. But then it has its clunky ones too (e.g. " Tay Bridge? But that's the code-name for my funeral", as everyone else in the room knows full well). Much of the dialogue is laboured, and unlikely. The Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Mother and Prince Charles, all played by front-rank actors and actresses, come across as wooden mimics, and wholly fail to catch the personalities of the parts they are playing. One can always rely on Helen Mirren to redeem a questionable role, but not it seems here. As with the others she misses the essential spirit of the Queen's stoicism: good humour in the face of adversity. An upright posture and abrupt transition from misery to jollity does not capture it. Almost all the 'aristocrats' stiffly bypass what ought to be an easy ability to combine great formality with great informality, sensitivity with authority, humour with seriousness. The sparkle in the eye is replaced with dead stereotyping. Prince Philip is gauche, the Queen Mother a pantomime dame and Prince Charles is without personality at all. Michael Sheen comes close, but does not do Blair as well here as he has elsewhere. Helen McCrory has a good stab at Cherie, but takes it too far into the obvious, as does Mark Bazeley as Alastair Campbell. The only part that truly convinces is Roger Allam as Robin Janvrin, who glues the whole thing together with the effortlessness one would expect of the role. All in all a surprisingly disappointing film, that promised to be much better than, in the end, it was.