Elizabeth II And 'The Crown', A Series To Imagine The Woman Behind The Symbol

If there is a crown jewel on Netflix, that is it The Crown. It is the only series with which the platform has managed to be crowned with the Emmy for best drama (in 2021), the most important television award, and one of the few titles that manage to obtain critical and public applause. The Crown it is one of the most expensive series of history, an impressive and luxurious production that spares no expense and that allows itself a cast of top-level actors. But if for something it attracts The Crown It’s because of your scripts.

Peter Morgan, who had already been commissioned to write the film The Queen (2006), in which Helen Mirren played the queen of England, is the head of the series that, in four seasons already broadcast and two pending release (the fifth batch of episodes will arrive in November), intends to review the reign of Elizabeth II while reviewing the historical events and the socio-cultural changes that the United Kingdom, Europe and the entire world have experienced in these decades.

Claire Foyan actress almost unknown until then and now within the acting elite thanks to her role in The Crown, was in charge of giving life to Isabel II in the first two seasons, which cover until the mid-sixties. With her, and always balancing for a fine line that separates fiction and reality, the viewer discovers an Elizabeth II with whom it is easy to empathize, a woman who had to learn to be queen and handle political and sentimental matters, always with the crown in mind and in which she contrasted his determination as a ruler with solitude as a woman.

Olivia Colemanan Oscar-winning actress with a long and acclaimed career in television and film, takes over in the third and fourth seasons to show a queen hardened by the years, cold on many occasions and with a tense relationship with his son Charles. Possibly the best chapter of the series so far. Aberfan (third of the third season), recalls the catastrophe that this Welsh mining town experienced on October 21, 1966 in which 144 people died, 116 of them children. The lack of reaction of the queen, who took a week to go to the place, is usually recognized as one of the great thorns stuck in the monarch. The series returns to that tragedy without hiding Elizabeth II’s failures and the pain she caused in someone who is both a person and a symbol.

Claire Foy in ‘The Crown’.

As you have progressed crown, the plot has explored other characters of the royal family that have given more juice both to the serious press like the tabloids. the fourth season introduced Lady Di to focus on her relationship with Charles of England and the love triangle that, as the series has been in charge of refreshing, was established with Camilla Parker-Bowles, I remember that it seems that it did not sit well in the Royal House. She also made clear the disagreements and clashes of characters between Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher, played by Gillian Anderson in fiction.

The fifth installment, which will arrive this fall, will once again change its cast to adjust to the age of the real characters. Now it will be Imelda Staunton, another highly regarded British performer, who will be in charge of reflecting the last decades of the reign of Elizabeth II, with the mystery of how far the plot of the sixth installment will go, whose filming began this August and which has been paralyzed momentarily by the death of the monarch. Peter Morgan had advanced in some interviews that he will not address the most recent issues in order to deal with the issues with the perspective that time gives. For now, the delivery that will be seen in November will review the troubled nineties, which include a succession of separations and divorces in the royal family, including that of Carlos and Diana, and the accident that ended the life of Lady Di in 1997.

The Crown has strengthened and refreshed the image of Elizabeth II as icon for audiovisual. The mixture of fascination and mystery that surrounds her figure is lowered here to a more earthly level to show or, rather, imagine the woman behind the symbol, the family within the palace. What is fiction and what is reality remains for the viewer.