Saw it last night and what interested me most was the fact that the queen plays (and fully expects) a fairly significant part in the political operations of the country. Even living in the UK for a year, I never got the impression that the royals were anything more than figureheads and objects of ceremonial (but empty) pagaentry and tabloid attention. The business with Blair kneeling and asking permission to run her government, and the fact that he has weekly meetings with her about varieties of policy positions would never have occurred to me. Maybe she wants to simply stay in the loop and keep up appearances, but I walked away from the film with the impression that the monarchs are more involved with the political arena than I originally thought.
Yeah, it surprises me how an actress whose sensuality is so elemental could be so convincing playing a monarch who (nowadays anyway) so personifies the stale English pepperpot.
Yes, and she’s had such meetings with every PM for over 50 years, which makes her advice well worth listening to.
I have to say this was the funniest movie I’ve seen in a theatre all year. It could easily pass as a comedy. The Windors are one the most bizarre families on the planet. How accurate where the characterizations? Charles came off as a rathey pathetic whipped mama’s boy 
, the Queen Mum as a fiesty curmudgen (Sophia Petrillo came to mind) and the Queen as completely and totally bizarre. I like how they didn’t recreate any of the news footage or funeral scenes any more that needed to replace the real Royals with the actors. We know what the public events looked like. The same with William and Harry we didn’t need to see their characters much. Did the thing with the dear have any basis in reality or was it made for the film? :dubious: I was surprised that the Queen (a woman in her 70s) simply went off alone into the woods (even if they’re private property) without guards or escorts of any kind? What if she fell and broke her hip (of course it was Charles that did it ). And I wasn’t aware that the Queen and Phillip still slept together. It brought some rather interesting visions to mind. :eek: Does the Queen actually use teleprompters? I read somewhere that she considers using them to be a form of acting and thus beneath her? 
I haven’t seen the movie, so don’t know how this was portrayed, but I have to say, as a Yank living in Scotland for a year, I had this happen to me a few times.
It was amazingly cool.
Some mornings, in my dorm room (a single), I’d wake up and hear clearly but off in the distance, a bagpipe. Looking out my window, there was a old castle-looking edifice (built in the 1850’s I believe), and some hills covered in trees and, as often as not, a low-hanging fog.
The bagpipes, the view, the fog - it was so magical and not disturbing in the least.
I haven’t seen the film, but this description sounds not unlike the image of the Blairs’ living quarters presented (carefully or otherwise) in the infamous Marie Claire photoshoot involving Cherie and Carole Caplin a few years back.
As has been discussed in several old threads, the formal reception rooms in No.10 are somewhat more grand.
Link to the webpage of the Queen’s Piper, a post instituted in its modern form by Queen Victoria in 1843.
Well, this thread is two months old, but we just saw the film last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. If close to the way things are, then it was a fascinating insight to the life of the royals. And Mirren, as always, was perfect.
The CBC is speculating that both the film and Helen Mirren will get Oscar noms tomorrow morning.
Much like her sex life with Prince Phillip.
cherie blair was on gma this am. ms sawyer asked about the movie. cb has seen it tb hasn’t. she liked it thought it was well done. not happy that her husband was portrayed as shorter than he is. he is taller than prince charles.
She also knows most of the worlds heads and ex heads of state and having met many ambassadors is very useful for “unofficial” negotiations between nations ,ie. the negotiations that never happened if they didn’t work out.
Better than me - I had a roommate in college that was learning to play the bagpipes. Oh, the horror! :eek:
On the strength of the Best Picture nom, I guess - one of the local theatres has brought it back. I was sorry I missed it in the fall. Mrs. Piper and I will go to it on the weekend.
I saw this flick last night, and I must admit, it was fascinating!
Of course, the queen and I are related (I am her 26th cousin, 3 times removed. Our common ancestor died circa 1331). So that helped fuel my interest.
Any good movies about the abdication?
Theres a BBC series called Edward & Mrs. Simpson which I saw many years ago, and thought was quite good. It’s on DVD, and would go for about 6 hours.
Slight nitpick. This was not a BBC series. It was produced by Thames Television, an ITV company.
Sorry – I should have checked that before posting. It had the feel of a BBC series, but I know that ITV can produce series like that as well.
Kudos to the costume design and makeup in this film. How they can turn someone as hot and sexy as Helen Mirren into a dowdly ole Queen is quite the trick!
Saw it this weekend, too. Fascinating stuff.
I don’t know exactly how accurate it was, but I thought that in particular, Prince Charles came off well. Concerned about his boys and not nearly as tin-eared toward the public as his parents were.
And yeah, Helen “Cabbage” Mirren is pretty much a shoo-in for the Oscar.