Formative Performances: Helen Mirren in “The Queen”

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

Up until Whitney Houston last month, the most distraught I have ever been over a celebrity death was far and away Princess Diana. There have been a plethora of articles recently about why we mourn celebrities so I won’t touch that topic except to say that Diana’s passing happened on the eve of me starting high school and it all just seemed like such a horrible tragedy after more than a decade of very public unhappiness. I think the world very much wanted her to have the happy ending befitting of a princess.

The film “The Queen” could have been your run-of-the-mill biopic about Queen Elizabeth II but it smartly chose to focus on one specific moment in time her life – right after Diana died. Long known as the People’s Princess for her empathetic personality and devotion to charitable causes, she was also (allegedly?) despised by the monarchy for bringing scandal, being the sympathetic one in her divorce from Prince Charles and generally for modernizing the old and stuffy British establishment. When she so suddenly died, the British people were in a state of abject mourning. The palace was stuck between a rock and a hard place, beholden to its constituency but at a loss as to why Diana was so beloved and what they could do for someone who disgraced them. No other pop culture piece was able to capture this dilemma so astutely nor so poetically. At the very forefront was Dame Helen Mirren whose performance as the titular rule was so well-liked that she swept every single precursor in sight for the entire season. She even won the NAACP Image Award!

Ladies and gentlemen, Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II…