Dryly funny and unexpectedly poignant, Stephen Frears' restrained comedy of manners weaves together decorous gossip and a fascinating look beneath the facade of pomp and ritual to capture Britain's royal family — particularly Helen Mirren's vivid Queen Elizabeth II — enmeshed in a crisis they're blithely unaware is unfolding around them. Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan could have skewered them for their eccentricities — all those fusty, fabulously wealthy aristocrats clomping around their Scottish summer estate in Balmoral in sensible shoes and kilts, more concerned with stag hunting and Welsh corgis than the popular outpouring of grief for "People's Princess" D...
Released:
2006
Rated:
PG-13
Length:
97 mins