Cast: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen

Direction: Stephen Frears

Nine months after its US release, and five months after it picked up an Oscar for its leading lady's jaw-dropping performance, British film The Queen has finally made it to our cinemas this week.

Better late than never, I'm going to say. I don't know if there's anything left to say about this film that I haven't already said on this show in the past, but I'm going to use this opportunity to repeat what I've been saying for the benefit of those who haven’t already watched the film on DVD.

Now the premise of the film, part-fact part-fiction, centres around the British royal family’s reaction to the death of Princess Diana in that fateful car accident in Paris in August 1997.

It's both a witty and scathing look at the monarchy, and in many ways it's a character-study of Queen Elizabeth II.

Remember, whatever we know about her is what we've read in the papers and what we’ve seen on television, but veteran British actress Helen Mirren literally brings to life this woman.

Not only does she succeed in creating a strong physical resemblance to Elizabeth, she also "becomes" her in spirit because she plays what is clearly this unsympathetic character with a distinct lack of sentimentalism.

You get it? See, it's very easy to play a likeable character. But when the character is one that people aren’t particularly sympathetic to, or one that people don't agree with, or one that people just don't like – that's the real challenge – to make that performance remarkable.

Of course, enough has been said about Helen Mirren's performance in the film, and that Oscar was undoubtedly well deserved.

But I want to say I thought the film deserved a few more awards, certainly for its excellent screenplay, which is so original and so imaginative. Now the film is also about the prickly relationship that Queen Elizabeth shared with then-newly elected Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair who urged her to be more considerate of her people’s feelings with regards to Diana’s death. It's about the clash between tradition and modernity.

It's an excellent film, sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, but always extremely clever. Watch it for the first-class performances of both Helen Mirren, and Michael Sheen who plays Tony Blair, watch it also for Stephen Frears' delicate direction, but most of all watch it because it's such a charming film.

So that's four out of five and two thumbs up for The Queen, it's one of the best films I've seen in recent months because really there's nothing better than some intelligent entertainment which is so rare to find these days.

Rating: 4 / 5 (Very Good)