This weekend we went to see The Queen, a movie that’s been around for a while but judging from the theater that was packed to capacity the six Oscar nominations continue to give the film enormous momentum.

And deservedly so. The struggle between elected politicians and the hereditary rulers of Britain – like in the inimitable series of fictional PM Francis Urquhart – is solid material for real drama. As I often explain, some European royal families continue to wield significant power and it is an absolute thrill to see the young and freshly elected Tony Blair balancing the strong wishes of Britain’s sovereign against the more popular feelings as they are channeled through his office.

The film puts its finger on the madness that ensued following Princess Diana’s tragic death. It takes Prince Phillip – another cool and steady performance by Babe and LA Confidential star James Cromwell – to point out that as nutty as his royal family is perceived to be, the general unhinged behaviour on London’s streets during that first week of September in 1997 is as disturbing. That painful truth manages to put the entire saga in a very different perspective.

As a result, Queen Elizabeth is somehow rehabilitated by this movie as a human fallen victim to her own sense of duty and tradition as well as her almost justifiable dislike of the late Princess of Wales. Even her emotional encounter with a stag that will eventually die at the hands of a hunter does not really bring home the point that a dead deer moves her more than a dead former daughter-in-law. Indstead Helen Mirren’s performance gives Elizabeth wings to a point where the septuagenarian royal transcends the status of a grey stodgy lady to an attractive and sensitive woman who has just been dealt a most unfortunate card.

There is lots for political buffs in this film too. A poignant moment is Blair ignoring a phone call which according to one of his aides is “Gordon” as is the Queen’s apt prediction that the fresh prime minister too will eventually fall from grace. That piece of wisdom comes at the end of the movie where the Queen and her prime-minister in an amicable way evaluate what actually transpired during that fateful summer. At that point the Queen acknowledges that she never really understood why the aftermath of Diana’s death unfolded in the way it did. Director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan’s masterpiece – which I will not hesitate to put it my top-ten all-time favorite movies - gives you an idea as well as an unexpected amount of warmth and sympathy towards her majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.