The Crown’s penultimate season is a bit of a slog

Hooked to Netflix’s The Crown, it’s been all the way down since Season 1. Season 4 with some terrific actors proving itself a sudden bright spot in the progressively dreary series. Not that The Crown lacks finesse and even engrossing interludes.

It’s the quality of chutzpah that seems lacking. Everyone seems to be stiffened to cadaverous limits by their responsibility to live up to the duties of the monarchy; and even though this is not the real thing, just playacting (so relax!) the actors seem constantly inhibited, even the delightful Lesley Manville, as Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sibling. Margaret somehow reminds me of Asha Bhosle to the ‘Queen’ Lata Mangeshkar. No matter how hard Princess Margaret tries to get out of her sister's shadow, it can never be. Brio can't be an alternative for genius.

Now for the real problem. Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth is just not right. She looks like a British housewife on a rare night out of drudgery dressed as the Queen. There is a discernible lack of spirit in the performance. It’s easy to see why her wily son Prince Charles was eager to wangle the throne from his mother.

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In a sequence early on in Season 5 Prince Charles (Dominic West) meets PM John Major to convince him that the public wants a change in the monarchy and why he and not his mother should occupy the throne. It’s a monumentally insulting incident in the history of the British monarchy and if true, then Charles waited since the 1990s to see his mother go.

That she would indeed abdicate the throne one day was not a situation that the makers of The Crown foresaw. If they had, they would have been kinder to Charles. Perhaps even Charles would have been kinder to himself. In Season 5 he almost comes across as villainous, not only to his mother but also to his wife Diana, played this season by the bewitching Elizabeth Debicki who gets the slouch, physical and emotional, right?

As played by Debicki, Princess Diana is a lousy wife but a terrific mother. During a cruise vacation when she mentions shopping much to Charles' annoyance, their two kids chip in, “We want to shop too.”

The sexual trespasses of the royal family are given a rather unbecoming giggly tone with sometimes even the Queen joining in the innuendoes. Like I said, Imelda Sataunton’s Queen comes across as very wannabe. Even her husband Prince Philip, played by Jonathan Pryce comes across as a man manfully fobbing off temptations.

I saw a tangible absence of dignity in the way the royal family is portrayed this season. Perhaps writer Peter Morgan and the directors were briefed to ‘humanize’ the royal family. In doing so the series this season seems to have discarded the aura that makes British royalty so intuitively imposing and dignified.

The sluggish pace and the uneven editing do not bequeath a karmic doom on the British family, rather they have the opposite affect: the family seems unfocussed in its endeavour to be exemplary, they would rather have fun, especially Princess Diana who goes all out to show her middle finger to her husband’s family with breathless nihilistic adventures.

Even Prince Philips’ reckless friendship with Lady Romsey (Natascha McElhone ) appears so out of place in what ought to have been a discreet exploration, not a Page 3 expose.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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