TORONTO -- Stephen Frears's The Queen scored a royal flush with the Toronto Film Critics Association yesterday. Beating out other nominees The Departed and United 93, Frears's drama was named the best picture of 2006. The Queen, which chronicles the tumult in the British royal family after the death of Princess Diana, dominated with four other prizes, one of them shared in a tie, for a total of five.
Helen Mirren won as best actress for playing embattled Queen Elizabeth II; Michael Sheen won as best supporting actor for his convincing performance as newly elected British prime minister Tony Blair; Peter Morgan won the best screenplay award for writing The Queen, which is based on meticulous research; and Frears shared the best director prize in a tie with brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for their drama L'Enfant. Other awards were spread around. Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes won twice, as best documentary feature and best Canadian film.
It was the only film besides The Queen to be named more than once. In a huge surprise, Sacha Baron Cohen won as best actor for his crazed performance in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The peerless Cate Blanchett won best supporting actress for Notes On A Scandal.
George Miller's Happy Feet took the prize as best animated feature; Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking was named the best first feature; and the Dardenne Brothers' L'Enfant won for best foreign-language film. The tallies mean that major films such as Martin Scorsese's The Departed, Pedro Almodovar's Volver, Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel were shut out, despite several nominations among them. In a non-competitive category, documentary filmmaker Allan King was named to the Clyde Gilmour Award.
It goes annually to a Canadian who has enriched the understanding and appreciation of film in Canada. The Vancouver-born, Toronto-based King made his directorial debut 50 years ago with his ground-breaking documentary Skid Row (1956) and remains active. His latest effort, EMPz 4 Life, played in the Toronto filmfest this year in the Masters program.
King will be feted when the TFCA holds its annual dinner in the new year.
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