The Crown feels like it's going to be a show in which I fall in love with the performances, writing, camerawork, visuals, and technical aspects of a little more than I fall in love with the storytelling, themes, etc. And that is to be somewhat expected from a show like this. They can either play things safe and try to make this as historically accurate as possible (in which case there's less room for original creative ideas in terms of storytelling and character arcs), or they can diverge from fact and play around with fiction, which allows for more creative liberty but leaves viewers with feelings of "did it really happen this way?" I'm in no position to know whether or not this show portrays its events with historical accuracy, so I'm really just here for the absolute delight that is the performances and the technical aspects. It's a beautiful show to look at in terms of production and costume design, as well as cinematography. And virtually every single performance is phenomenal. Claire Foy is incredible in the central role and completely disappears and seems to embody Elizabeth, Matt Smith is perfect, Vanessa Kirby is perfect, and all of the supporting players are so good. All of these performances immerse you in the setting as much as anything else, despite many of these actors being big names and very recognizable. But far and away my favorite part of this season is John Lithgow. This has to be one of the best television performances ever, or at least it is one of my personal favorites. Lithgow is great in everything he touches, but this feels defining. He's magnificent. This show may have a ceiling on it for me just by nature of what it is, but there is still enough intrigue and enjoyment from watching these events from this time and from these perspectives (even if I have no idea how accurate they are) to keep things entertaining. And with the technical aspects adding a lot and the performances doing so much to keep you craving for more, this first season is great.
The King is dead, long live the Queen
Intriques, dramas, british accents, royalty. All that comes inside a flash to old times with The Crown, a historical drama made by Sony Pictures and Netflix.
In order to prepare this review of the first two seasons (this is part one for the first season) I watched a lot of interviews, behind the scenes and of course the series as well.
Story
Starting with the renouncement of the royal titles from Greece and Denmark, Philip enters British citizationship. In the show it is displayed that the renouncement and his granting of English titles happend on the same date and on the day before the wedding. In reality he became a citizen of Great Britain 8 months before the wedding and was appointed Duke of Edinburgh (a.o.) the morning of his marriage.
After this short introduction, the series cuts right to the marriage of Elizabeth and Philip and introduces the Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His whole character and his affect on the British people is shown alone by his entry into Westminster Abbey. Being sure to be the last one of the attendees to enter, during the choir sings "I Vow to Thee, My Country" and walking down the aisle of the Abbey whilst everyone is raising for the beloved Prime Minister.
Hard to beat. That was my first thought on the scene. But as soon as the Irish State Coach arrived, carring King George VI. and Princess Elizabeth and the fanfares of "Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven" sound through the church, my eyes very taken in by the screen. Having goosebumps from the music and trouble breathing from the imagery, I fear what yet to come. But it is in amazement that I feel this. 10 minutes in the show and I am already sucked into the maelstrom of British History, a very good made show, fantastic actors and royalty.
Which is followed by a shown open-heart-and-lung-surgery on the king and his removal of the latter. This didn't bring the change of health everyone expected and when he is told, there is a significant change in his behaviour. You notice that his character becomes more sad and distant. Understandable, of course. This leading to a very emotional Christmas Eve were the inhabitants of Sandringham visited the King and his family and gave him a little present and sang for him. After singing with them, the King has tears in his eyes and thanks everyone for being here and dying one and a half months later.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet tries to puch Churchill out with every means. Although the late King refuses to help them in their effort, they try everything to achieve their goal. But with the death of his Majesty, Churchill becomes a very dear mentor of the new Queen.
The great smog. Now why someone would say "great" to an event so dreadful is beyond me, but it was very good staged in the series. It was a bit overdramatic and ended with the death of a character that started out as someone to grown to the audience. Turns out Venetia is quite the Churchill-fangirl, reading his books before going into bed. A shame she is run over by a bus, which you could not hear at all. We all know that engines in 1957 were as quiet as a Tesla today. When watching the third episode I had the feeling that the PM is not doing anything regarding that matter, only pursuing his own agenda, leading to just another intrique against his position as Prime Minister. But the death of his beloved, young secretary moves the old Winston to see the fatality of this tragic event. With a speech where he addresses all the issues and promises immdiate money raises, he is summoned to Buckingham Palace, where one sees the Queen thinking about her biding the PM to give way for a younger candiate, just as the fog rises and the sun starts to shine over London again. So, this whole episode was very interesting to watch, gave you clues how horribly unprepared everyone was for such an event, but in the end had a unsatisfying finale.
Now, let me use a whole passage for the Coronation: With the appointment of her Husband, Queen Elizabeth brought an internal scandal into the family, forcing the Queen Mother to act on it. In fact, the Queen Mother seems to have her fingers in everything that happens in the live of her daughter. But before we get to the coronation itself, first the Royal House deals with the matter of Edward VIII and his attendence to the coronation. Of course he and his wife planned to attend the coronation of Elizabeth, the Royal House only gave an invitation to him and not his wife. Because of that he sees himself forced to decline his invitation. A well played move by the Royals, I have to admit.
The coronation also brought a quarell into the marriage of the Royals. Philp didn't want to kneel before his wife because he felt effeminate because of it. In my oppinion he lacked the strength of a real man then, which will change in the course of the whole series.
In preperation I watched the whole coronation of the Queen, feeling that it was a very magical thing to watch. In the show the coronation is an act for 10 minutes, where in fact it lasted for the better part of three hours. Although we saw the annointing on our screens, we felt the magical moment upon as when the holy oil dropped into the spoon and the Archbishop touched her Majesty with this holy oil. You feel the change in Elizabeth herself that happened during the annointing, where she entered as Elizabeth and arose as Queen Elizabeth II.
Seeing the coronation with David, his wife and a host of various people, gives every viewer a feeling of hatred, right next to the magic you see. The hatred the last abdicated king has for his whole family is seeping through the whole series, where you ask yourself: Why? You gave up the throne, drawn the wrath of the whole family because you broke with the traditions, just to pursue love that didn't seem too happy in the series.
Just one episode after the coronation, the Royal Family got the next scandal incoming. The relationship between Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend, an affair which will keep it's breath for the better part of two seasons. The introduction of their relationship to the Queen and her consort is one of the best scenes when you keep an eye on Philip. The Royal Couple was invited to dinner and Philip was about to start his first course, when he realized that now is not the time to eat and poured his soup back into the bowl. Lovely behaviour.
After the Queen Mother intervenes and brings forward the Royal Marriage Act of 1772 and effectively seperates the two lovers, the Group Captain and the Princess recive a lot of media buzz, which ultimately leads to his immitiade posting to Brussels and so the seperation of Margaret and Peter. This seperation for about two years, of course, destroys the love between the Queens younger sister and her lover. The two years of them beeing seperated, I would certainly call hell for the relation between the two sisters.
Education is the theme of the seventh episode. Elizabeth questions her own education and hires a private tutor to teach her about common language. And it is the first episode to see CORGIES! Besides that, the country faces the danger of the Soviets testing the H-Bomb (in case you don't know, that is a form of nuclear bomb). And besides that, Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary and Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, are both facing a major health crisis. My lord, in every episode is happening so much stuff, it is hard to summarise all.
And with that said, it literally happen the same things over and over again. A problem arises but the society surrounding the Queen is making a tremedous fuss about anything, so the little, easy to solve problem is getting into a problem that are nearly impossible to solve, just because everyone is giving bad advise. Or because one is just an idiot. Good lord, many times I thought "Are you completely mad?". Churchill not telling the Queen nothing about the stroke he had, or Martin Charteris, after promised the position as Private Secretary, letting trimm the tree in his future house. Idiot...
So, by now the season is nearly over and we have still one drama to attend. The marriage of her Majesty and her consort. Prince Philip is shown as very unhappy in his role as Royal consort, not being present at most of the times, not feeling like a man in the relationship. A feeling, giving the circumstances, is childish and simply not right. After Her Majesty is getting involved with horse racing and Lord Porchester, Philip gets really jealous and even accuses her of cheating on him. Which is (of course) not true. But this drama is at least beliveable, at some degree at last. It ends with Philip being sent on a Royal Tour to figure out his position and behaviour and the gives a bridge to Season Two.
Actors
As much as I love Jared Harris' performance as King George VI., I am confused by it. Was the late King really that moody? Let's take the first scene of the series as an example. When the King enters and grants him the title of Duke of Edinburgh (a.o.), he stammers at the beginning of the first sentence. Let me assume that he didn't forget his words. Did he stagger because of his cancer, which was developing? Or did he just forget what to say? It seems unclear in that moment and in my humble opinion, the whole performance as King George VI. was very good, but not very comprehensable. (At least for me)
Now, after watching Episode 5, where the King was shown staggering speaking even before his coronation, I was puzzled. So, I consulted Google. And after reading an article of the Telegraph and the Wikipedia-article (shame on me), I finally got to know why Harris did perfom as seen on the show. Because the King did stammer. So, I decide to leave the first paragraph as I wrote it at the beginning, just because the initial question is still there. Without getting background information one would not know that the late King had a problem with stammering. So know, instead of beeing puzzled by this perfomance, I now see it from a completely different angle and say: Well played sir, well played indeed!
Claire Foy is Queen Elizabeth II. What I didn't expect was that she would portrait her so believable. Her accent sounds a lot like the Queen and combined with apperance, her hairstyle (which was done extra for the show, I might add) and the joy she emits while playing her role, give a very believeable picture of the Queen in her early years. A woman, who is torn between her marriage, her youth, her family and the sovereignty. All that must not be easy for a young woman, who gets pushed in such an important role unexpectedly and with a tragedy.
After seeing a lot of interviews with her about the role she played, I love how her voice transformed and how she sounds like the Queen herself. This is just my opinion, while watching The Crown and the latest Christmas massage from the Queen herself next to each other.
Winston Churchill is personated by the great John Lithgow, who plays Churchill very, very good. Apart from the weird acting that sometimes happens, it is very beliveable. A, kind of strange, old man, who just wants to serve the people of Britain. A man, who believes in monarchy and someone who just wants not to leave the system he served, unobserved.
But after serving the late King for one and half terms, he has to adapt to the new Queen and her style of ruling, as well as guiding her in her new role as monarch. A task which is very difficult for one man alone. While his party is about to push him out of politics. Well, I can say for certain that politics never changes. Not with time, not with countries.
Prince Philip is played by Matt Smith, who acts not very reasonable as a husband in the first season. Why is a big question to myself. In every episode I just asked myself how man can be so stupid, after winning a world war. Prince Philip is not the only one to act stupid. Churchill, Eden and literally every man in a position
Music
The first time I heard the opening fanfare, I stopped my thoughts and somewhere in my mind, I was thinking "I heard something simillar already. It sounds like Hans Zimmer." And the moment I thought that, I saw exactly that name on the screen. And, hello, it is phanomenal!
Throwing in some very classical pieces of music like "I Vow to Thee, My Country" or "Zadok the Priest", just underline the the historical aspect of the show and have the effect of sucking you right into the perfectly displayed images. Of course it is not required to know every piece of music one hears in the series, I am just a very special kind of Nerd for knowing them, but one should at least be able to enjoy the combination of music and imagery.
Summary
My thought on this season are very clear. It is brilliantly filmed, very good put to life through the amazing work of the actory and therefore I'll advise anyone to watch it.
Rating: 80/100
Pros:
Beautiful imagery
Lovely accent ;)
Cons:
At some times historically incorrect
Characters are acting clichéd and idiotic at some points. Especially men
After having the fifth scandal from Princess Margaret it get's boring
Review by r96skBlockedParent2020-05-07T18:28:31Z
Season 1 of 'The Crown' is impressive, though isn't anything overly enthralling.
That's not a negative per se, but it's very much a show that I can sit back and enjoy as opposed to being on the edge of my seat. The standout part to this is the cast, who do an admirable job at portraying their characters. If I have one grievance it is that the story does feel very well told, too well in-fact - as in, you can tell it's written based on how everyone knows the subjects involved; Winston Churchill being the key example of that, it can all come across a little too on the nose at times.
As noted, the cast are fantastic. Claire Foy is an incredible cast as Queen Elizabeth II. Not only does she look like her, she portrays her exceptionally - very impressive performance. The aforementioned Churchill is played by John Lithgow, who I was unsure about during the opening episodes but by the end he also delivers - he's fun to watch in the role, even if it is a tad exaggerated portrayal here and there. Matt Smith (Philip), Vanessa Kirby (Margaret) and Jared Harris (King George VI) are also good here.
The whole look of the show is superb. Love the work of Hans Zimmer and Rupert Gregson-Williams on the theme/music, also.