QUEEN HELEN’S ELIZABETHS

Helen Mirren made entertainment history in 2006 playing England’s most famous Elizabeths. Chronologically she played HBO’s Elizabeth I, directed by Tom Hooper and then The Queen, Stephen Frears’ waggishly uppercrust movie about England’s blame in and whines as responses to the untimely death of Princess Diana, with Mirren the convenient numero uno villianess. Given the excellence of the scripts—Nigel Williams’ revealing concentration on Elizabeth I as an often silly romantic underneath the majesty but also as a nearly unbridled monarch with real power; Peter Morgan’s chatter in The Queen having the sound of a real Tony Blair insider knowing how to utilize a queen’s window-dressing to keep her crown—chances are good the final products would be worthy of seeing no matter who played the two royal personages. May be accidental and well as providential Mirren performed the queens back to back, yet it is historic having won virtually every movie and television acting award for both, including Oscar and Emmy. (And she found the time to bring the harrowing Prime Suspect series to an Emmy-winning conclusion too.) As Meryl Streep says without an ounce of actor’s envy, Mirren’s “the best.” Her queens are filet mignon performances—you’re feasting and it isn’t just because you’re consuming her every word or action as actress, though certainly main course, it’s that you also carry within your own history book or media-fed baggage a myriad of morsels about the real people she’s only playing and very nearly come to believe she is those queens, the essence of which makes her pure joy to watch. Hooper, who’d helm HBO’s John Adams and the movies The King’s Speech, Les Misérables, The Danish Girl and Cats, an adaptation so vomitous there’s no need for additional mockery, will direct Mirren in another HBO series Catherine the Great with different results. Initially thought of classifying Elizabeth I and The Queen in Favorites, because they are, but what’s undeniable is neither monarch could survive without the ability to draw down the protective guard of reserve and sometimes enforce not-so-reserved aggression.

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Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER (Revised 11/2021)  All Rights Reserved.