The Queen (PG-13, 2006)

THE QUEEN is fictionalized account of the months following Princess Diana's fatal 1997 car crash. Directed by Stephen Frears and scripted by Last King of Scotland writer Peter Morgan, the movie specifically explores the conflict between Queen Elizabeth II's (Helen Mirren) expectations of "her people" and their expectations of her. While the family -- especially Prince Philip (James Cromwell) and the Queen Mother (Sylvia Syms) -- stubbornly dismisses the public outpouring of grief (the queen insists her subjects will "come to heir senses"), Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) sees the mourning and increasing outrage as an expression of collective frustration with the royals being "out of touch."

For its first hour or so, The Queen is carried along by a witty irreverence, equally targeting the queen and Blair as both manage their self-image. But then, instead of trusting Mirren to convey the queen's emotional transition -- which she does, brilliantly -- the film comes up with a heavy-handed metaphor for the loss of tradition. During one countryside excursion, the queen spots a magnificent stag and tries to save it from being shot, appreciating its beauty, vulnerability, wildness, and purity.

If this isn't enough, the film later delivers the Queen's "lesson" in an oddly passionate speech by Blair to his staff, which instructs them (and viewers, as if they haven't been watching the queen pondering her dilemma for the past 90 minutes) on the queen's efforts to make sense of her new age. In this moment, the film shows a lack of faith in its own audience.