The Queen: Incredible Insight, I'm Assuming

Stephen Frears, 2006

I’ve said this time and time again, but this year I’m going to make some money off of it. In order to win an Academy Award for Best or Best Supporting Actor or Actress, you must be impersonating a real figure in a biopic about that figure. If you have the misfortune to star in a film that does not feature people doing impressions of real people, then your only recourse is to hope for either a year without a biopic Academy contender (good luck) or to hope that you are Russell Crowe*. That being said, I would like to propose a bet that Helen Mirren is not only nominated but takes away the Oscar for Best Actress in the 2007 Academy Awards.

I do not say this to gush. I liked the movie, and I thought she did a perfectly fine job, but my enthusiasm is only that I have finally found a film that both fits this weird proclivity of the Academy’s and also deserves the praise it will undoubtedly receive. I won’t repeat myself and relate the many films that have won ridiculous accolades undeservingly, simply because they reaffirm for us that we really enjoy the music/good works/art of some dead famous person.** But if biopics are the only way to get some Oscars around here, I am happy to say that The Queen is a good one, and I will feel no remorse when it sweeps the Awards.

The only obstacle facing director Stephen Frears at the Awards is that he artfully portrays well-known heads of state…in a different country. For instance, I’m assuming James Cromwell did a bang-up job as Prince Philip, but to be honest with you, I have, like, no idea what Prince Phillip is like. I actually had to remind myself who he was. So I’m hoping that just because we can easily look at Jamie Foxx and say “Gotcha. You’re being Ray Charles,” The Queen won’t arrive at our Halloween party and have to explain its clever costume, which doesn’t garner nearly as much attention as the undeserving but easily recognizable Sexy Dorothy.***

In sum, The Queen is a very, very interesting film that is probably a great take on what probably happened within the confines of the Royal Family after Princess Diana’s death. I’m blindly trusting Frears on the accuracy of this statement, not just because he knows more than I do, but because he includes actual footage of President Clinton. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him.

*Best Actor at Fooling People Into Thinking He’s a Good Actor, Which In Itself Is a Pretty Good Form of Acting, So It’s Hard Not to Respect Him
**Let me be clear, I'm in no way disrespecting Johnny Cash or Truman Capote or any of those guys, but just because we make a film about a great person doesn't mean that that film is automatically a good one.
***Or should I say, Foxxy Dorothy.