'The Queen' a supremely well acted, if not sometimes detached, look at the events surrounding the British monarchy in the week following the fatal car crash of the ex-princess Diana. Enter Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning monarch of England. She never got along with Diana and she plays everything the old fashioned way: with dignity, as she would say. But the people don't want that, they want to see some "heart in the House of Windsor" and she rebukes their cries on a near daily basis, creating dissent among the masses. So, with the aid of the newly elected (and totally not reviled at the time Tony Blair), she is forced to confront the thing all the old guard fear: change.

    Helen Mirren...look, I don't know Queen Elizabeth, I've never had tea and crumpets with her. Never played a rousing game of cricket. Or gone "stalking" with her. I've seen her pictures on the telly and in the papers. And Helen Mirren, she is Queen Elizabeth. She is not acting, she's not doing some weird Method thing, she is Elizabeth II. Mirren could walk down the street in her costumes and I would have no idea that this was an impostor, she is that damn good. Much like Jamie Foxx became Ray Charles, she IS the head monarch of England. She's a woman stuck in time, a different time and she is caught between her convictions and beliefs, and the "modernization" that she objects to. The most important decisions in life are never easy, and the Queen...well, she has to make those kind of decisions on a near hourly basis. She's been brought up to be in touch with her people, but she sits alone with her family (which includes the brilliant James Cromwell) that she doesn't realize what those needs are.

    As an audience, we never completely sympathize with the Queen. We want to, but director Frears (High Fidelity) never presses the subject too much. He gives us glimpses, quick flashes of genuine human frailty in the moments when Elizabeth finds herself alone. There's no press, no crucial life decision to attend to, and she can finally let down her guard. In what is a masterful stroke, the Queen sits alone by a river and cries, but cameraman Alfonso Beato lets the camera linger on her back, giving us only her shoulder and the soft whimpers of a woman who sees all that she holds dear suddenly not relevant anymore.

    I'm not entirely sure how he manages it, but Martin Sheen, playing Prime Minister Tony Blair, damn near steals the show. And considering the magnitude of Mirren's performance, that is certainly saying something. Sheen's Tony Blair is a guy caught in a tricky situation. On the one hand, he is responsible for leading the country, but on the other, he stills take council from the Queen (a bizarre notion for us across the Pond, since when does our president ever take advice?). He's a modernizer, and as such clashes with the Queen's idea of things, but at the same time..."she's, you know, the Queen" he says. As leader, he has to walk a fine line, between what the people want and what is right both morally and politically.

    It's odd seeing the rapport between Monarch and PM, given the situation today. Back in late August 1997, Blair was, metaphorically speaking, King of England and even 25 percent of voters thought that dissolving the monarchy was a good idea. Fast forward 10 years, and the situation is doubtlessly reversed.

    Some movies are directed and some are acted. 'The Queen' falls decidedly into the latter category.         There's character development, tender moments and some very amusing things to be said, but never a whole lot for the actors to do. You can divide the film into scenes at the royal estate and scenes at Blair's office. Occasionally, the family goes out for a hunt, but those scenes never quite coalesced with the film as a whole, despite some breathtaking shots of the English countryside.

    As an aside, I don't care if the Oscars are "boring" because there won't be any "surprises" in the big categories. Helen Mirren deserves this. You know it. I know it. Hell, even people who haven't seen this movie yet knows she deserves it. And you know what? I am totally, 100 percent fantastic with that.