Mixing insightful fiction with fact, dramatization with film clips, “The Queen” leads us into private palace and 10 Downing Street scenes involving the Queen, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, the Queen Mother and assorted key personnel. The major problem all must deal with is how to respond to the sudden tragic death of Diana in the Paris auto crash and the burgeoning public response idealizing her life and paying massive tribute with tears and flowers.

With Diana having become a pariah to the Royal Family, it would prefer that she be buried with a minimum of fuss with the Queen remaining secluded at her Balmoral home. Mirren is marvelous portraying icy adherence to traditional reserve compounded by distaste for Diana as a star-like public figure, and efforts to understand and deal with the contemporary British public. Blair, flashily and energetically played by Michael Sheen, who captures the Prime Minister’s populist attitudes and image, feels the Queen is making a grievous error that will fuel animosity toward the crown. He is bent on rescuing the Queen from self-destructing, but he is also shown using his alignment with the mass mourning to further his own political fortunes.

There are some terrifically acute scenes between the Queen and Blair. She feels humiliated by having to succumb to Blair’s pleas, join in the mourning and acquiesce to the elaborate funeral plans against her wishes but in recognition of having to bow to the public and the press. She cuts off Blair’s approval of her turn-around with a comment that someday he may know what it is like to be scorned, a carefully-honed bit of screenwriting attuned to Blair’s later political descent, and his being called “Bush’s poodle” as a result of tying his reputation to Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq.

There are other lines that may especially amuse British audiences, as when Blair is preparing a speech in which he says, “As Prime Minister,” and his advisor suggests he remember to say “As Labor Prime Minister,” a screenwriting dig suggesting that he is forgetting all about what he is supposed to represent in his march toward the middle.

The film is also sharp in demonstrating how the Queen cannot fathom the popularity of Diana in death, which makes sense in view of the over-the-top placing her on a pedestal beyond all reason, as if the public were desperately looking for an needy emotional connection.

The performances are all high caliber, including those of James Cromwell as the aloof Prince Philip, Alex Jennings as Prince Charles, Sylvia Syms as a somewhat spacey Queen Mother, and Helen McCrory as a Cherie Blair, who is awkward in executing the protocol to be observed when meeting the Queen and critical of her husband’s eagerness to accommodate and help bolster royalty.