The Crown earns our attention through precise acting and a convincing sense of how royal duty intrudes on private life. Its solemnity sometimes makes scenes drag, but the people remain worth watching.
Peter Morgan’s The Crown asks us to take royal duty seriously, even when we might prefer to ask why anyone needs it. For much of its six-season run, it earns that attention through acting precise enough to make an unanswered remark feel consequential. This is absorbing family drama, though its habit of treating every frustration with the same solemn respect makes it slower than it needs to be. We recommend it most readily to viewers who enjoy watching people struggle to remain polite.
The early portrait of Elizabeth is the reason to settle in. We were moved by the effort behind her composure: an answer delayed, a feeling checked before it can be spoken, a face kept still while somebody else talks. Those small acts make learning to exercise power feel difficult without requiring a speech about how difficult it is. The dialogue can explain a predicament too thoroughly, but the acting gives us someone trying to understand what she is allowed to want.
Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton are persuasive as Queen Elizabeth II because neither rushes to make her approachable. Olivia Colman is especially effective when an expression appears settled and then shifts almost reluctantly. Imelda Staunton makes formality feel firmly acquired, something the character no longer expects to explain. The change of performers asks us to accept a new face, but it also keeps us watching familiar behaviour rather than taking it for granted.
Tobias Menzies gives Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, an impatience that prevents the family scenes from becoming too decorous. He lets irritation register before courtesy can tidy it away, which gives conversations a welcome edge. Helena Bonham Carter’s Princess Margaret expresses dissatisfaction more openly, and her presence makes Elizabeth’s restraint look harder to sustain. Both performances are most interesting when wounded pride is allowed to remain unattractive, without an accompanying request for sympathy.
The production design is by Martin Childs, and the formal rooms feel difficult to relax in; even the furniture seems to demand good posture. Adriano Goldman is among the cinematographers, and the best images make the distance between people feel uncomfortable. The rooms and framing help explain behaviour without another conversation about obligation. The clothes, with Michele Clapton among the costume designers, contribute to that effect: people look prepared to be inspected. Occasionally we would welcome a room that did not appear ready for an official photograph.
Editing is less consistent. With Yan Miles among the editors, the series gives pauses room to work, but also lets scenes continue after their emotional point has become clear. The music, credited to Rupert Gregson-Williams, Martin Phipps and Lorne Balfe, lends those pauses gravity that they do not always deserve. We prefer the passages where speech and silence are enough, because the score can make a modest family disagreement feel as though it requires national attention.
The limitation is familiar from period drama: good manners and careful furnishings can persuade us that a scene contains more than it does. The Crown is so attentive to the discomfort of being royal that it sometimes forgets to question the family’s claim on our sympathy. We can care about these people without accepting every grievance as important, and the writing is better when it remembers that. Settle in for the performances, but allow yourself to be less impressed by the institution than the music would like.
