With 96 years of age and 70 reignIsabel II deserved a series, and Netflix took over with one of the most successful and highest quality productions on the platform. The crown is, without a doubt, One of the best series in history.
With four seasons in it and two more coming out (the fifth should arrive in November), it is the docufiction that it portrays the older woman and the one who had been sovereign for the longest of his country, Great Britain.
To give life to the monarch and, at the same time, to the woman who has been Queen of England for seven decades, it took not one but three actresses. Three interpreters, naturally English, who put themselves in the shoes (and in the crown) of Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, whose arrival to the throne as Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom marked a before and after in the history of much of the twentieth century and continues today again.
royal family scandals
Without scandal there is no crown. And without the suspense to prove it there wouldn’t be The crown: the series that since 2016 evokes the famous facts and the least investigated of the British royal family. Its creator, Peter Morgan, has been able to blend the historical with the melodrama and, moreover, with a natural English tension: suspicion.
The challenge of The crown, before each new season, it turns green like Queen Elizabeth II’s eyes every time she leaves the palace. Will it look the same or worse than before? Will it keep its aura or will it miss the previous version?
In the third and fourth seasons, Olivia Colman’s charismatic royal composition seals what Claire Foy had already revealed in her youth version, in the first two. Being the queen is less frivolous than you think. It is the moral reserve of his country. The institution that guarantees its perpetuation.
So far the series explored her life from the 1940s to the 1980s. Each event could be captured as a non-schematic photograph of Elizabeth II with her subjects and relatives. And her thematic rigor has never been diluted: the Queen’s ability to move her pieces to the rhythm of reality.
As we said, the combination of reality and fiction, of melodrama with historical factsthey did The crown a gripping series, which far from being followed only in the UK, has become a Netflix workhorse for its quality, both in historical reconstruction, as well as in performances, costumes and locations, many of them real.
The actresses who embodied her and the one to come
The fifth season, which debuts in November, will show the decade of the 90s. From the terrible breakup of Carlos and Diana to his deathAugust 13, 1997: the day Lady Di also became a symbol of the nation.
Not without generating some controversy for the behind-the-scenes show The crownWhat is indisputable is the talent of the actresses chosen to play Isabel. Against any prejudice, even for those who have no affinity with the monarchy, fascinating is the Isabel that the protagonists of the series play.
The public has already met two: Claire Foyas a young Isabel in the first two seasons and, Olivia Coleman, as the sovereign at the height of her reign, in the next two. Now it remains to discover the queen closest to today, at the hands of Imelda Staunton.
But for this we will have to wait, since the fifth season will almost certainly premiere in November 2022 and the sixth is still in production. The top four arrived on Netflix between 2016 and 2020.
Showing the queen, the series proposes a review of some of the most important historical events of the last 50 years and a character, up to now, not very “cinematic”, especially outside the confines of his kingdom.
Far from the famous and indefinite “British phlegm” that Elizabeth seems to represent almost from a textbook, both Foy and Colman have given the public a completely new profile of this woman who, outside the borders of the Commonwealth (the 15 states over which she exercises her sovereignty, in addition to Great Britain) , it is practically unknown.
But the screenplay and interpretations of Foy and Colman in The crown they manage to give him an unprecedented carcassa profound humanity that awakens all kinds of feelings in the viewer.
From international geopolitics to more traditional British customs, the Isabel of the series shows all its facets: that of politics and diplomacy with its solemnity above all, for the responsibility of carrying the title of queen on one’s shoulders; and also that of guardian of a millennial monarchy who does not want to give up the protagonism.
A woman with a long marriage
But Foy and Colman also represent the woman she fell in love with Philip of Edinburgh, with whom she was married for 73 years until her death in 2021 at the age of 99. The actresses are also able to show the mother of four, the daughter and heir to the crown, her sister, with all the grays of her and with a range of shades perceptible even at the time of ‘five o’clock tea.
Both actors, and the same will surely happen with Staunton as Isabel in the last phase of her life, teach acting, in an authentic display of emotions and feelings: the antipathy, the contained pain, the oppression, the resilience, the stubbornness, the conviction and even the affection shown by the drops, in short, everything that passes through every human being.
The crown delves into the B side of a monarcha role that in the 21st century is almost an endangered species and of which there are minimal references: only his matching clothes and hats, the inevitable bag on his arm and a voice heard in very sporadic speeches on the radio before and for the tv then.
The woman and the queen are indissolubleI’m just one of these actresses who found the heart and the courage to do it an apparently imperturbable figure. A wife who doubts her husband’s fidelity, worried about the upbringing of her children and also a mother-in-law in conflict with a famous daughter-in-law like Lady Di, among many other facets.
In the first season, Claire Foy is an Elizabeth who, at the age of 21, marries Philip and prepares to succeed her father, George VI, on the throne. It is the moment of logical fears in front of her new role that she approaches with all the symbolic load of her.
A personality shown in small and subtle gestures, but that convey a lot of expressiveness, that’s what Foy does with the queen segment he was lucky enough to have.
A similar genuineness is that of Olivia Colman, in her more mature Isabel. The same feeling of “the procession enters inside” makes the entire inner world of that woman visible to the public, the psyche of those who have assumed with total naturalness that they are Head of State, representative of an empire, with which time has disappeared, and with whom held a temper of steel over decades.
Claire Foy has created an Elizabeth who is both tender and politically correct even at crucial moments like giving birth to her children. A a young woman who had to grow up ahead of time and that, at the same time, she did not hesitate to hold firm to the conviction of marrying the man she was in love with.
For her part, Olivia Colman, her heir to the series, knows how to take all the contained expressiveness and bring it to its maximum expression, already converted into an adult seasoned with infinite rules to follow and aware of its power.
Between the queen and the woman
Colman’s Isabel must maintain a delicate balance between the alleged monarchical impartiality, the fulfillment of duty to the extreme and the needs of the Isabel woman who, almost It is not allowed to waver because it is not what it corresponds to. Sometimes a single tear in it is enough to express a tragedy.
The works of Foy and Colman are moving and it is excluded that this is also the case of the elderly Isabel faced by Imelda Stauton, since in a moment of life when there are more memories than projects. Surely the actress will be able to find all the nuances necessary for the queen, in what will be her farewell.
At 66, Imelda Staunton (star of Vera DrakeDownton Abbey Y evil, among many others), comes to the series with all its exchanges in tow. “I was happy to see The crown From the beginning. As an actress it was a joy to see both Claire Foy and Olivia Colman bring something unique and special to Peter Morgan’s screenplays, “said Staunton.
Crossed by the figure of the queen, Foy, Colman and Staunton are one block joined by minimal and refined pieces to bring the queen to life on the screen, over time, reaching the very essence of the character.
Despite rejection and criticism from the real-life royal family, and backed by flawless production and a cast as impressive as the leading actresses, The crown She is a true queen of streaming.
Where and how to see The Crown
The Queen Elizabeth series is available in the Netflix catalog. Of The crown You can see the first four seasons, recorded between 2016 and 2002. The fifth will be released in November this year and the sixth is still in the works.
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Source: Clarin
