Review: 'The Queen' Is Stunning Achievement

'The Queen' (PG-13)(out of four)

We think of great directors as those who can deliver the big moment in a memorable way. And while Stephen Frears ("High Fidelity," "Dangerous Liasons") can definitely nail that big moment just as well as anyone working today, what makes him even greater is his ability to handle the small things in a nuanced way, juggling tone and style in a way few directors would even dare.

Take "The Grifters," his movie about a conman who is the son of one conwoman and in love with another, or his 2002 thriller "Dirty Pretty Things," which starts as a murder mystery before morphing into a horror film about a black market for human organs, a societal study of illegal immigration and a love story between two immigrants threatened with deportation.

Not many directors could pull this off in a modern movie industry that so often prefers to sell formulaic films with one-note melodies. Frears, on the other hand, prefers to orchestrate two or three melodies simultaneously, mixing in additional harmonies until you've arrived at a place you never could have expected.

Such is "The Queen," Frears' exceptional drama that has slowly started selling out movie theaters across the country.

At the midpoint of this movie, in which we have already cried for the death of Princess Diana, laughed at the ridiculousness of Britain's royal family, scoffed at the arrogance of Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) and seriously contemplated the political challenges facing a government in a moment of public outrage, Frears stops the emotional roller coaster to hit us with a moment of raw humanity that takes our breath away.

In the middle of the royal family's vast estate, far from the mourning of London as tens of thousands of mourners gather at the gates of Buckingham Palace, the Queen's Jeep gets a flat tire. She waits on the banks of a river for someone to come pick her up, and as she waits, an air of silence sweeps over the story. Suddenly the words, jokes and criticisms stop, and Frears asks us to look at this woman -- to really look into her soul.

And what see is something surprisingly complex. Yes, she exists in an elitist bubble, but she is no monster. She is a politician, but a flawed politician; a mother, but a flawed mother; a ruler, but in this instance, a profoundly flawed leader.

All at once, in a movie that has asked us to condemn her, mock her and shun her for trying to cast Diana as an outsider, Frears slams on the brakes and asks us to identify with her as, above all, a flawed human being.

Given its complexity, it is difficult to summarize what happens in this movie. Its three major players -- the government, the royal family and the public -- are introduced all at once, as Di's death devastates an entire country and leaves them looking both to the royals, who would just as soon ignore the death, and to the new Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), who must quickly learn how to navigate the minefield of public sentiment and royal politics.

Naturally, so much of the story rests on the shoulders of Helen Mirren -- who at this point seems guaranteed an Oscar nomination, if not a statue -- who must play her character as just callous enough to temporarily lose the admiration of her country, but just sympathetic enough to win us over as an audience.

Part historical recreation, part political thriller and part character study, here's a movie that fixes its attention on one moment -- a moment that led to a tectonic shift in a nation's politics -- and considers it from every imaginable angle.

Much like the Queen herself, it's a story that gets more complex the closer you look.