rated PG-13
“The Queen” is about people we think we are familiar with—the Queen of England, Prince Charles, Prime Minister Tony Blair—but don’t actually know at all. Watching this perceptive and fascinating film, however, is almost like eavesdropping through a keyhole on the most tender, delicate conversations imaginable. These strangers who have long been witnessed from afar are startlingly alive, fragile and, well, human. The awe or uninformed admiration we often feel for people of wealth and power is quickly dissolved and replaced by something like understanding.

If you have heard of this movie, it is no doubt due to Helen Mirren, who stars, miraculously, as Queen Elizabeth II, but that focus narrows considerably this film’s enormous power. Mirren undoubtedly delivers a wonderfully nuanced, heartbreaking performance, but there is so much more going on.

In fact, “The Queen” is not so much about its purported subject as it is about how people are shaped and molded by the circumstances into which they are born—how that affects their values, their speech, what they wear and what they do in their day-to-day lives. It is hard to recall a film that told so much through the slightest detail, whether it is how the Queen’s personal secretary grovels before her (she expects it), or, in opposite fashion, why Cherie Blair (the excellent Helen McCrory) gives the Queen an insolent little curtsey rather than show respect to a monarchy she abhors.

We meet Queen Elizabeth and her family at the beginning of a remarkable time in recent English history. It is 1997, Tony Blair (played beautifully by Michael Sheen) has just been elected prime minister by a landslide, and change—even hope—is weaving itself through English life. Nothing is changing inside Buckingham Palace, though. It has the feel of a large, upholstered mausoleum, and the Queen tellingly reminds the newly elected Blair that he is her 10th prime minister. She has seen everything before.

Or so she thinks.

Hovering in the background is Diana, the former Princess of Wales. We see her briefly in news clips, and it is a shock to remember how radiant she was, and even more tragic to once again see how her story ends. In an eerie, economic sequence, we see Diana leaving her hotel in Paris and being chased through the streets by the voracious paparazzi, until the fatal crash occurs.

The Royal Family is in for a long week, and that one week is the focus of almost the entire story in “The Queen.” The palace is informed of Diana’s death, and the country and the world mourn. While we have seen the video and photos of the mountain of flowers that were left outside Buckingham Palace immediately following her death, what we have never seen before is the political and psychological maneuvering that went on behind the scenes.

Blair correctly gauges the mood of the country, which is manifested by an outpouring of emotion, while the bitter and hapless royals still go out and hunt stag on their 40,000-acre Balmoral Estate in Scotland. They eat crumpets and drink tea, and refuse to acknowledge that there could be another perception of Diana instead of the one they hold of her, seemingly one of contempt.

Blair, in a series of phone calls, urges the Queen to reconsider her decision not to speak publicly of Diana’s death. In her acts of refusal, and then her slow capitulation, Mirren holds the center of the film.

When we meet the Queen, she has a slack, condescending mouth and uninquisitive eyes. Nothing about her life surprises her any more. She claims to know the wisdom and emotions of the English better than anyone, but of course this is sadly untrue. During the unrelenting press coverage of Diana’s death and the bitter condemnation of the royal family that followed, the Queen unexpectedly finds the world shifting below her feet.

It is the triumph of Mirren’s performance to show this seismic change in only the tiniest ways—her eyes suddenly begin to see the world around her, not just in front of her—and something approaching emotion creeps into her voice. It is thrilling to watch, because this, really, is how most of us change: slowly, over time, unsteadily. Tony Blair also undergoes his own alteration—he begins to see the royals as deeply troubled, rather than simply pampered and useless.

When the Queen and Prince Philip (James Cromwell) finally do go to London to greet the thousands of people who have not left Buckingham Palace in a week, it is not the cathartic emotional release you would expect from most films, but rather another layer of tragedy, and another layer of insight.

Almost everyone in the film deserves high praise: Mirren, Sheen, McCrory, Robert Allym (as the Queen’s secretary Robin Janvrin), Tim McMullen as Blair’s overeager speechwriter, and Alex Jennings as Prince Charles all turn in beautiful performances. It is a joy to watch actors not only entertain but also create character. This kind of craftsmanship and art is rare. One not need be a royalist or a Helen Mirren fan to enjoy this quiet, powerful movie.