“Elizabeth. A Portrait in Parts” (M) *** and a half

A COUPLE of weeks ago, reviewing filmmaker Roger Michell’s “The Duke”, I mourned his recent passing and told readers that it was his last film. I was wrong. 

“Elizabeth”, a nostalgic, uplifting and modern documentary about Queen Elizabeth II” must have been winding its way through a laboratory somewhere in the UK awaiting completion of the editing function and release.

Not many movies get completed after the director has died. This one had the privilege, and the complexities, of stringing together bits of film from various vaults, writing pithy summations of a collection of apposite categories of vision and sound, then glueing them together in correct order. Bravo, editor Joanna Crickmay and the film’s quintet of producers. You have cobbled together 89 minutes of delightful cinema with no plot and only one star – Her Maj, in all her moods, at all her duties.

I write this on her 96th birthday. And I am pleased to tell readers that, however their view of the monarchy/republic dichotomy that goes on that sceptred isle and in those loyal dependencies, what Michell and his team have wrought is mightily entertaining, honest, unbiased, fun. 

And respect for a woman who, of all the folk whose heads have worn the crown of England deserves 10 out of 10 for her performance of arduous, often antediluvian, political, gubernatorial and family duties.

All the while manifesting an inner humanity that most normal human beings would struggle to achieve.

I enjoyed reading the placards that protesters were waving. I smiled at the costumes that people were wearing when they were out protesting. Her calm handling of her complex ceremonial and official duties is eye-watering. She’s lucky to have that immediate and backstairs staff paid out of the Privy Purse. But at the end of the day, it’s she who oversees managing her monarchy across a huge range of matters.

I sometimes wished that some of the film’s clips might have been longer or taken a different perspective. But on-the-day control of the film’s variety of events had long since passed by.

And, by golly, HM has made an act that Charlie is going to find hard to emulate.

At Dendy and Palace Electric