August 31 will mark 20 years since the death of the "people's princess", Princess Diana
Her global celebrity has never waned and watching the superb British movie The Queen on Maori Television on Sunday night was testament to the acting genius of Helen Mirren.
The wonderful film had me transfixed from the opening scenes.
I loved overtly twitchy new Prime Minister Tony Blair walking warily into the palace to meet with the Queen.
She didn't help him at all. Held a distant smile and had an equally disinterested cool voice.
Her Majesty's voice, is absolute cut-glass and would demolish the most confident chap.
The film starts just before the Paris crash and Diana's death and goes skating downhill from there in a most dramatic and entertaining way.
As the horrific news hits the Royals at Balmoral, it's clear the Blair and his Labour Party are keen to give the Queen a right seeing-to about how the funeral and all should be dealt with, undermining the policy of not airing Royal grief in public.
As we remember, Diana was immediately dubbed the people's princess and the public filled the streets with a grief that spilled over into targeting the royal family and their apparent disinterest in those first few days.
It seemed the Queen was keeping the "boys" at Balmoral and away from the global media madness.
She was not helped by snivelly comments from the Duke of Edinburgh and completely put out Queen mum.
Our queen was a trojan. Mirren's portrayal was superb.
As most reviews said at the time, the film was irreverent, funny, wicked and right to the point. Hear, hear from me.
