Venice: Britain's Queen Elizabeth was unable to comprehend the public's grief at Princess Diana's death in 1997 but was finally convinced to cast aside royal protocol by Prime Minister Tony Blair, a new film shows.
Stephen Frears' The Queen was screened at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, giving journalists the first chance to see the eagerly-awaited reconstruction of the dramatic days following the high-speed car crash in Paris that killed Diana.
Mirren, who has just won an Emmy for her title role in the mini-series Elizabeth I, takes on the unusual task of portraying a living monarch in the film, which also explores newly-elected Blair's role in the crisis.
With her hair dyed silver and voice trained to match that of the monarch, Mirren gives a convincing performance full of humour and sympathy for a woman struggling to abandon the stiff upper lip she believed her people wanted her to display.
"There's been a change, some shift in values," Mirren's queen says during a conversation with her mother at Balmoral in Scotland. She also contemplates abdicating the throne.
"I don't think I will ever understand what happened this summer," she adds towards the end of the film in a conversation with Blair. "I have never been hated like that before. I prefer to keep my feelings to myself. That's all I've ever known." Frears explores the relationship between Blair and the long-serving monarch, and suggests the prime minister saw her as a mother figure.
Blair's wife, Cherie, is far less sympathetic to royalty. In the days after Diana's death headlines were dominated by the backlash against the royal family caused by what people saw as its indifference to the hugely popular princess.
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