Best Actress: Helen Mirren

Did you know that you're forbidden from making a biopic about Queen Elizabeth II without shoehorning in the line "It's ma'am as in jam, not ma'am as in farm"? 

via virginiachance

A subject matter I'm well acquainted with! The Queen tells the story of the emotionally roiling week between the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on August 31, 1997 and her funeral on September 6.

Queen Elizabeth II, played by Helen Mirren, navigates managing the loss as a grandmother to two devastated boys and to a grieving nation she feels has no real say in how she or the Royal Family manages the situation. An upstart prime minister, Tony Blair, played by Michael Sheen, comes in as a breath of fresh air Labour leader who seems to view the royals as out of touch and is constantly juggling his own agenda as he mounts a new government and runs interference for the Queen as she continues to maintain a silence up at her Scottish bolthole at Balmoral.

This is a tautly-told story, not a second is wasted, not a characterization is wrongly delivered. Sylvia Syms is perfect as a curtain-calling Queen Mother, with the perfect aged stoop. As Prince Philip, James Cromwell is there to deliver acerbic lines and be portrayed as horrifically out of touch as to what the public wants (which kind of goes against the accepted wisdsom that Philip was the true modernizer of the monarchy, but that's a different post on a different blog). It's a shame there's no real market for a King Charles III cinematic universe, because nobody can get him right. By my estimation, Alex Jennings is the only one to portray Charles in middle age and get the mannerisms, the dusty speaking voice and the head tilt right (the only other portrayal I'll accept is Josh O'Connor as a younger Charles in The Crown). I don't know much about Tony Blair, but Michael Sheen has played him three times, so there's something to be said for that.

And then you get to Helen Mirren, who in another timeline was probably a regular woman who acted as a Queen Elizabeth impersonator every time the papers wanted to run goofy stories or a family wanted to hire a Queen for a birthday party. She has everything about Queen Elizabeth down pat; the received pronounciation, the resting frown face, the soulful eyes. 

This isn't a performance where you can swing for the fences and chew all the scenery. Queen Elizabeth was, by all accounts, restrained in public and in private, and this was one of the toughest weeks of her reign (and her life). Helen shows how bruising this weight was, how the Queen took right and wrong lessons from it all (allegedly), and how she navigated being a grandmother and a sovereign.

One last comment from me about The Queen: it's amazing that it was written by the same man who later helmed The Crown. I could argue that it went off the rails just as the '90s rolled around, and the show became more known for sensationalist storylines and imagined scenes between real people that we have no real way of verifying. 

But in its early seasons, the Claire Foy seasons, anyway, it was a drama as taut and important as The Queen. It's just a shame it fell off.

Helen was nominated against Penélope Cruz (Volver), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), and Kate Winslet (Little Children). I'm not so salty that Kate didn't win this one, cause I don't particularly care for Little Children, but I'm living for the fact that Meryl got nominated for playing Miranda Priestley. Icon.

Still, this was Helen's, hands down.

DID I LIKE THE QUEEN? Yes!

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Did you like The Queen? What are your thoughts on Helen Mirren's Oscar win? 

Keep up with all my Rewatching the Best Actresses posts here.