The Queen and I

TV Movie
2018
1h 14m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Samantha Bond and David Walliams in The Queen and I (2018)

A new republican prime minister strips the British monarch and her family of their money and assets and forces them to live on a rundown council estate.A new republican prime minister strips the British monarch and her family of their money and assets and forces them to live on a rundown council estate.A new republican prime minister strips the British monarch and her family of their money and assets and forces them to live on a rundown council estate.

Director
- Dan Zeff
Writers
- Stephen Russell
- Sue Townsend
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.4/10

417

YOUR RATING

Director
- Dan Zeff
Writers
- Stephen Russell
- Sue Townsend
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos53

+ 49

User reviews11

5.4417

Featured reviews

2stubydoo68

Read the book

This could have been so much better. Most of the book seemed to have been overlooked. It seemed like they only took the basic premise of the novel with only a couple of threads remaining but those was drastically trimmed to leave a totally too short running time. Would have more sense to make a 6 part half hour series. Waste of an excellent cast

6shahjrahman

Typically British

A movie that is intended for family entertainment, and it achieves that very well with a fun cast and a very British style of comedy.

1brian-wernham-396-865622

Not funny - do not waste your time

I can only agree with the other comments here: It is situated 20+ years ago without any frame of reference to place the watcher in the time period. Many of the characters are now dead, and unknown to many watchers (Princess Margaret, Queen Mother) etc. Jokes about Princess Di dating Dodi Fayed are obviously not funny in hindsight. It portrays everyone in a nasty manner, 'the Royals' and 'the Poor' are equally shown to be lazy/backbiting/worthless people. Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. Watch the brilliant 'The Windors' TV series instead which pokes fun at today's Royals in a playful and very funny way.

7Fdivor1

😊

This film is meant to be comedic and it achieves that! Yes there is an underlying political statement but previous reviews have taken it too seriously... Lighten up enjoy life!

1wordsandmusic

Not funny. Truly, madly, deeply..........not funny at all.

The book was first published around 1992/3, so quite what the point is of filming it 25 years later, I fail to see, and I wish whoever was responsible hadn't bothered.

Puerile jokes about Charles's ears, the (late) Queen Mother's fondness for horse racing, the (late) Princess Margaret's fondness for cigarettes and gin & tonic - it's all here, and it really doesn't work.

Now top off the whole sorry confection with references to the Princess of Wales still being alive and living abroad somewhere with Dodi Fayed and you start to see how crushingly unfunny and indeed irrelevant this is. It is truly awful.

I've tried to imagine how, or indeed if this might actually have been funny at the time it was written, when some of the characters were still alive and would have meant something to the readers, but I just can't see it.

Not even the excellent cast can save it - it is the biggest turkey of this Christmas.

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Though the year of the action is never stated, the radio newsreader reporting the election result gives the date as 15th October. This must be a Friday, as UK General Elections are always held on a Thursday. The fifteenth of October fell on a Friday in 1993, which would tie in with the apparent ages of Princes William and Harry (though not with the Queen Mother claiming to be 92; she turned 93 in August of that year. Possibly she simply forgot).

Goofs
The original novel by Sue Townsend was published in 1992 and set at the time of the 1992 general election. Although the time period is not mentioned in this film, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret are still alive (both died in 2002) and Princes William and Harry are still children. However various 21st century items are featured such as vehicles, 2010s-style TV news graphics, tasers and electronic cigarettes.