It's the end of an extraordinary series that began nine years ago in a meeting room in Los Angeles. The figures are dizzying: 1400 days of filming to put together 60 episodes that will have mobilized 200 actors and thousands of extras, costumes, uniforms, wigs and will have set up his cameras in a hundred old English mansions and manors. This Thursday, Netflix is releasing the last six episodes of The Crown, its flagship saga about the reign of Elizabeth II. These final installments run from the fall of 1997, after Diana's death, to Charles and Camilla's wedding in April 2005. Love would at last triumph over duty...
To discover
- Tonight TV: check out all the programs airing tonight on TV
In the meantime, Elizabeth II will have to bury her sister, Princess Margaret, and then their mother, suffering the desire to reform the monarchy by the ambitious Tony Blair. Enough to create an atmosphere of the end of a reign. Flashbacks (including a frenzied one evoking Elizabeth's May 8, 1945) and family films allow the return of familiar faces, as if the gaze were staring at the rear-view mirror in search of lost dreams, loves or youth. These poignant memories contrast with the austerity, the greyness of the present where death lurks.
Hitherto confined to an extra, the sovereign, played by Imelda Staunton, finds a less peripheral place. William and Harry's reconstruction after the tragedy is imagined, the crucible of the first tensions between the princes. Screenwriter Peter Morgan swears he's never read Harry's incendiary memoir, The Deputy, but his pen highlights the burgeoning gulf between William, an idol of young girls in spite of himself, and a punk cadet, a bad boy smoking marijuana and looking for a fight in pubs. A boy who says to his elder brother, who hates journalists: "To be liked, you still have to be sympathetic...
»Read alsoThe Crown, behind the scenes of a high-ranking series
Grotesque dramatization
The Crown, as with the character of Diana, gravitates towards the younger generations who are the lifeblood of this final stretch, elegant and neat but limping, unable to regain the luster of the beginnings with Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. Blame it on a dull and aloof Imelda Staunton. Forced into total passivity, she thickens the mystery of Elizabeth II rather than shedding light on it. The actress doesn't give a glimpse of the monarch's inner life, clairvoyance and mischievousness until it's too late.
Read alsoOur review of The Crown on Netflix: why this return fascinates as much as it destabilizes
Peter Morgan is more inspired to re-enact the college meeting between William and Kate Middleton, which he replays with incredible suspense in the style of Pride and Prejudice. No matter how much fiction, reality or physical resemblance the performers (Ed McVey, Meg Bellamy) have, the viewer lets himself be carried away. This is both Morgan's genius and Achilles' heel. The closer we get to the present events, the more obvious are the concessions made in the name of dramatization, sometimes in the greatest grotesqueness.
Peter Morgan is more inspired to re-enact the college meeting between William and Kate Middleton, which he replays with incredible suspense in the style of Pride and Prejudice. Justin Downing/Netflix/Justin Downing/Netflix
The designer, who prides himself on pushing the facts to their limits while remaining credible, breaks his contract of trust by imagining a young Kate crossing paths with Diana and William in the street in the winter of 1996. Unnecessary deviation from reality; In all his interviews, Prince William regretted that his wife and mother had never seen each other. Later, the first kiss between the lovebirds is interrupted by the announcement of Queen Mum's death.
Small consolation, the ghost of Diana, a controversial innovation of the episodes released in November, is no longer summoned. However, the device returns and applies to Princess Margaret. Another incongruous staging idea that falls flat is the Queen's nightmare, which imagines Tony and Cherie Blair usurping the crown. Not yet shown to the press, the final episode marks the return of director Stephen Daldry, author of the pilot episode of The Crown. Enough to whet our curiosity about this conclusion which intends to pay tribute to Elizabeth II and all the actresses who played her.
SPOILER WARNING
Titled "Sleep Dearie Sleep," the final episode of The Crown pays tribute to the monarch's three portrayers: Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton. Netflix
Titled "Sleep Dearie Sleep," this final chapter sees the Queen consult with the Anglican Church, the state, William and Harry before giving her blessing to Charles and Camilla's union. The monarch also has to work on her own funeral, which disturbs her and makes her think about her posterity, the synopsis promises.