Queen (TV Mini Series 2022) Poster

(2022)

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8/10
Feel-good
wolf_globke26 June 2022
Overall, a feel-good show. Good production and acting, some drama coming in unexpectedly but all to build up the ultimately redemptive arc.

7 stars when watching it sober, 8 stars when drunk.
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6/10
Enjoyed it!
cassienell5 July 2022
Enjoyed it. Loretta is not 100% convincing as a major drag star in a RuPaul drag race world but nevertheless worth watching. Very interesting juxtaposition between the Paris drag scene and a coal mining town in Poland. The dog didn't get enough airtime.
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6/10
Pleasant viewing - fine acting
armstrongd_uk5 July 2022
The trailer coaxed me into viewing this feel-good gem. Seweryn was really excellent - would love to see more of him. Feel it was really a 90 minute feature stretched into a series, unnecessarily slow moving at times. But heart is in the right place - very likeable.
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7/10
Touching funny family story
tm-sheehan31 July 2022
Queen. Krolowa in Polish Queen Review: A Grandpa's Coming Out Happy Story My Rating 7/10

I was so pleased I scrolled through what's on and found this delightful little series with an unusual story of family life and reconciliation. I would have preferred seeing a non dubbed version with subtitles but the English language dubbing is ok.

Queen is a Polish drama that was released on Netflix on 23 June 2022. It is a Netflix original drama series which is written by the late Árni Ólafur Ásgeirsson and Kacper Wysocki. Directed by Lukasz Kosmicki, a popular director known for his films like The Coldest Game and The Dark House, it is a four-part series with a runtime of about 48-54 minutes respectively.

I was thinking it could almost be a sequel to the classic La Cage aux folles the central character is very like Albin but not quite as flamboyant .

The story begins on News Year eve in a Paris club where Loretta a celebrity drag queen by night and exclusive tailor Sylvestre Borkowski by day decides to retire and return to Poland the country he left to pursue his career after receiving a letter from his Granddaughter Izabela.

He promised himself years ago that he would leave his life in the Polish mining town behind and never return but the contents of his Granddaughter's letter convince him to revisit his past.

There's a lot of humorous and touching moments in this series with shades of The Full Monty and Kinky Boots when Loretta enlists her best friend the statuesque drag performer Corentin Kova Réa who tries to choreograph a dance number with the Polish miners who are very resistant to this Rainbow duo from Paris.

Maria Peszek as Wioletta Pavic Loretta's very resistant daughter and Julia Chetnicka as his delightful and kooky granddaughter contribute so much to this series which is a real family viewing experience.
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9/10
What this world needs now is heart warming :)
Boo to the haters. I'm a gay expat living in Poland and I know with confidence that this is what the country, if not the world, needs more of. Bravo on all levels: The music, writing, acting, cinematography, accurate depiction of the grittier aspects of Polish life and most of all the humour are all on point. Superb!
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6/10
Sweet, but a total rip off of SO MANY MOVIES
paulat11129 June 2022
Total rip off of Kinky Boots, The Birdcage, which is the American version of La Cage aux Folles, Priscilla, Queen of the dessert and so many more. Sure, it's a feel good show. But the lack of literally ANYTHING original is why I am only giving 6 stars. The acting is ok. The main star is good. But they really could have tried a bit harder to be original.
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9/10
Need your heart warmed?
mass-3294229 June 2022
Sweet, but not overly so. All the ingredients are here and they've made a good product. I was touched and entertained throughout. I'm not sure what else to say to convince you that watching this brave little show is time well spent. "Find out who you are and do it on purpose." The great Dolly Parton didn't have this show in mind when she said it, but it surely applies. This show succeeds beautifully at what it aims to be. Fun.
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6/10
Good acting, dubbing, music and scenery
thejdrage20 July 2022
This was an all round fun mini-series (4 episodes=mini).

The beginning and the end were delightful! The middle had some "soap opera" moments that had me questioning why I was watching it, but then it ramped up again and went back to it's good side!

Yes - the story "borrows" from several other films. However, it puts it's own spin on it and makes them its own in the best ways.

It's worth the watch. Especially since the dubbing into English was excellent.
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9/10
Cutting new ground
tomwins129 June 2022
I wish I could say this story had been told before but it is only the beginning of stories that need to be told. This is a series made in Poland (a very conservative area) That only begins to tell the story of LGBTQ+ people.

While similar stories have been told in the US or England or Western EU, more stories like this need to be told. And we need to get beyond the drag queen level of telling. That is why I gave it 9 out of ten, because more stories need to be told that go deeper and further.

But it got a 9 of 10 because it 1) was from a conservative country and 2) touched on the impact of a grand-father on a child and grandchild and 3) showed how many of us in our early 20s still don't know how to make the best decision for us because our societies keep imposing mores on our thinking and 4) struggles with how those cultural mores help and hurt each individual working our how to live the best life for each person involved.
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10/10
Delightful
fiona_rp5 July 2022
A well acted and lovely story with a happy ending!! Superb acting, characters well cast in their roles, wonderful choreography.

Story well paced and thoroughly delightful! Thank you so much, it made me smile.
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5/10
Questionable pleasure, at best.
Davalon-Davalon2 July 2022
Warning: Spoilers
It's difficult to categorize this little mini-series. It's only 4 episodes long. It's clear that a fair amount of money was spent on certain scenes, so some of it, especially the "Paris" part, is fun to watch. Once the show moves to Poland, not so much.

In essence, a girl tracks down a man (her grandfather) on the Internet. She's never met him. Her mother (the man's daughter) has kidney disease and needs a transplant pronto. The man lives in Paris and is a renown tailor by day and an even more renown drag queen ("Loretta") by night. (He does look good in a suit, but as a drag queen, it's much more implied i.e. He can wear the clothes, but his "performance" is minimal and essentially laughable).

The man abandoned his daughter and wife (now dead) in Poland when he was young, apparently because he was gay and driven to be a drag queen and/or driven to do something in which he would not be burdened by a family.

The girl finds Grandpa on the Internet and sends him a letter asking him to come home and donate one of his kidneys to Mom, because apparently there is not one person in the entire country of Poland who has a kidney that might be a match. So, Gramps, after much, much, much prodding by his bff, (actor Kova Rea), basically his own personal RuPaul, decides to return to Poland and donate his kidney. This, despite the fact that Gramps is mid-70s.

Then, as if a row of dominoes fell, Gramps and daughter are in the operation room. Soon after, the daughter's boyfriends (she has two) are trapped in a mine, where they work, their lives now in danger -- at approximately the same time that the daughter realizes she is pregnant by one of the boyfriends. This at the same time that the mother, even though she's "grateful" for the kidney, is taking out 35 years of anger at her father for abandoning her (and yet, without him, she could not live).

The daughter's baby is born prematurely; one of the boyfriends die in the mining accident. The mother gets the "bright idea" to host a charity event to provide families with money, considering that some miners died and they were the sole support of their families.

It is decided to ask some of the surviving miners to dance in the event (because... why would you hire professionals when you can hire honest-to-God miners?). Because Grandpa is now the "director" of the show, he flies in his personal RuPaul who "choreographs" the men. All this is done in service of an obnoxious Polish pop star who is going to "headline" the charity event "for free." But of course, at the last minute she bails (because the mother is incredibly obnoxious and insults her). Because she bails, the "charity event" is in desperate need of a headliner.

One guess who that is: Loretta, Grandpa's alter-ego.

He appears on stage in the midst of the miner-dancers, and badly/barely lip-syncs Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" -- and because he does, donations from all over Poland (and Paris, where Gramps did the costumes for a bunch of drag queens) come pouring in.

This leads to a happy ending for all, with hundreds of unanswered logic questions.

There were moments of hysterically funny unintentional humor. The movie was trying to tell 4 stories at once, something it simply could not.

The best thing that can be said is that the English dubs were superb quality and crystal clear. More importantly, they were cast perfectly. From this angle, the movie was actually entertaining, because you could clearly hear every word that was being spoken.

Otherwise, it is a questionable pleasure at best.
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10/10
Regal and flamboyant
classixdt29 June 2022
What is not to like about this series. The music hall scenes are entertaining, the storyline is well crafted and the performances are superb. At times it was gloomy and other times totally uplifting. Sylwester's character was a triumph. I loved it.
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10/10
Great story
hbhrqmm9 July 2022
Beautiful story. I really enjoyed this. It's a story of forgiveness. What the world needs more of.

I would love to see more like this.

Great cast - great story Very talented actors and extremely well written and preformed.
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10/10
Heartwarming, sumptuous and utterly delightful!
chatwithmichaelmac16 July 2022
What a gorgeous production this is...full of love and humanity. Perfectly acted, beautifully filmed, this is a rare gem. Well done Netflix for bringing us such exceptional cinema.

This is such a treat!
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8/10
Realistic portrayal trying to amend the past
hamsaflight17 July 2022
I loved this miniseries. I found that the interaction between the long lost father and his daughter, and grand-daughter were realistic and expectable. Well done, especially since Poland does not usually deal with the issue of Gay/Drag Queen very well.
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2/10
Not for me
SMCC4429 August 2022
It could have been a good series but was spoiled by so many scenes that did not belong there. Watched the 4 episodes in less than an hour by fast forwarding through. May appeal to limited audiences. There is some good acting and, generally, I like Polish movies and series. For some reason, Netflix originals, more than 80%, have become dull and boring and all because Netflix wants to be the socially correct and diverse instead of focusing the script. There is a tremendous amount of unnecessary explicit sex, violence , and drug usage even if it does not belong in the script. Just watched another series, Ludik. It has the same problem. We often think of canceling our membership but there are enough third party shows and movies that convinces us to stay.
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10/10
This could have been a hokie mess.
gnatsong18 July 2022
But, given exceptional acting by even lesser characters, and fine direction, what could easily have been a disaster movie was fun, engaging, heartwarming, all those superlatives I never use. Certainly a tad implausible at times, I didn't care. It was good to binge watch a series that didn't leave me bored.
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9/10
So sweet, but didn't need all the subplots
lisaprofetto18 July 2022
Warning: Spoilers
(Spoilers). Loved the cast, the general story of forgiveness, and "if I could turn back time". My only criticism is the twisty drama subplots. The questionable paternity, the premature birth were not necessary to move the story forward. Nonetheless, a real feel good miniseries.
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9/10
Another underrated Polish film
Sonofamoviegeek14 August 2022
I love Polish film. They make by movies Poles for Poles. There are many better movies about LGBTQ characters but this movies must be watched to see how the subject is portrayed in conservative Roman Catholic Poland. "Loretta" must travel to Paris to come out of the closet which shows right at the start Poland's lack of acceptance of LGBTQ persons. Loretta's return ultimately becomes warm and polite after the initial coldness and rejection.

As a pioneering effort in LGBTQ movies, Queen has flaws aplenty. The recovery of both "Loretta" and Wioletta from the kidney transplant is too swift. Another obvious example is that "Loretta" is not a very good drag queen. The charm of drag shows is the exaggerated movements of men imitating women. See Priscilla Queen of the Desert for drag done properly.

Despite the flaws, Queen is worth seeing as a feelgood movie without any gratuitous car chases.
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8/10
special, funny, warm hearted--joyful in many ways
bknkthg12 August 2022
Something to watch with an open heart and joy in the characters, the story, the humor and probably more truth than I realize. It covers a lot of territory in only 4 episodes in what---in many shows--would take 8 to 12; I appreciate the compression. It is not hard to fill in the blanks. Lead actor Andrzej Seweryn conveys so much so quietly.
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2/10
Not for me
laduqesa30 July 2022
This ludicrous confection was deleted after one episode. Poor acting, risible plot, impossible situations. I'm not even going to outline what was the matter with this.

I dislike leaving short reviews but this mini series doesn't deserve any more of my time. I lost an hour of my life already on episode one.
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10/10
It has been a while...
matthewleexxx9 November 2022
Great series does not come by easily. The drama is short with only 4 episodes but enough to warm your heart. There is always room for improvement, but I simply cannot find anything that I would change for this show. Great production, casts and crews both front and back screen. You can tell everyone worked very hard with their heart and soul to make this happen. No perfect body figures, hair-do or veneer teeth. Just authentic acting and storyline that is simple yet impactful. Just brilliant! I think the series is good to end with just that. Although if there is a second season, I would be thrilled to watch it.
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10/10
Art imitating life!
necebee23 May 2023
My very first review and I had to for this winner of a limited series. I cannot stand how much I love this wonderful show! ALL the main actors are simply marvelous and bring such warmth, hilarity and honesty to their characters. It is a funny, fun, melancholy, life affirming series.

Given the craziness of what is going on in the crazy states here, I love that a show is presenting drag so honestly. We love who we love. Period. If anyone is fortunate enough to do what they love to do, how fabulous! I will pass this along to everyone I know, Twitter included!

Bravo to the writers and actors and thank you for such a delightful show. To laugh AND cry watching a show reflects, to me, it has it all.
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10/10
Warm hearted beautiful mini series
njp-0581730 January 2023
I really..... REALLY enjoyed watching this on netflix. I'm more of a film person who can't cope with series type things that just go on and on forever so I was a little sceptical at first. However, after the 2nd episode i found myself checking out how many episodes were left. Devastated to find out only two more. I do believe that says it all!!!! It is such a warm, lovely, light hearted program, but so interesting and different all in one. I'm really fed up of such predictable things at the moment, so this was a lovely change and a definite must see !! What more can you ask for! Perfect 10 ! Best mini series Netflix have made in a long time.
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10/10
Loved this!
freebyrdkare13 January 2023
Yes I'm a romantic and yes I'm sentimental but this series edged its way into a brittle community of ignorance. I loved it 😍. It was real and contained realistic humour but above all the undercurrent was one of understanding and humanity. It has all the ingredients needed to make a wonderful viewing experience.

There is a solid foundation of empathy for all people in this film, that I found instantly endearing. Life can be hard but we can all learn from this series that life, as we know it, can be altered for the better and for a better cause. It just needs acceptance to progress on a better road.
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