Dench has perfected the kind of fabulously crabby grandeur that was
once Maggie Smith's preserve. Haughty to the point of rudeness,
outwardly cold - yet vulnerable beneath, in a way that only the camera
picks up. It's perfect for playing queens, and she's used it as both
Victoria and Elizabeth I (winning an Oscar for just 8 minutes in
Shakespeare In Love) - but she's also deployed it as a steely M in Bond,
and the coarsest of village ladies in Chocolat. Only one problem: she's
become so good at it, she seems to have given up doing anything else.
