WATCH NOW
ELIZABETH with spectacular Aussie Oscar contender Cate Blanchett in the title role, is a flashy, nasty version of how Queen Elizabeth I became the mythic Virgin Queen of British history. The purpose is drama, not scrupulous academic detail, in doing this subject again.
Writer Michael Hirst and director Shekhar Kapur use creative reconstruction and telescoping of people and events to get the drift of the intrigues and horrors of mid 16th century England in the throes of the Reformation. Religion and politics were hopelessly mixed, and life on earth was so miserable it was relatively easy to look forward to paradise.
Liz is cast as a plucky bright hero in her youthful prime really the only likable character who improbably overcomes a dark gallery of grotesques of varied faiths and nations to make impoverished, imperiled England a great power for four centuries. The queen is shown as a modern woman (“I have the heart of a man I have no fear of anything.”) who can’t see why God cares what religion you are.
She finds the men around her either weak or treacherous, and so she ultimately “marries England.” Joseph Fiennes strikes romantic sparks as the lover who proves duplicitous. But much more memorable are Geoffrey Rush as her ruthlessly cynical adviser Walsingham and Christopher Eccleston as Norfolk, her intense, brooding Catholic foe.
Any film with Elizabeth as charismatic hero is going to have Catholics as bad guys. And they’re all figures of darkness, from the pitiful Queen Mary to gloomy Spaniards, decadent French and the pope (John Gielgud), who actively supports assassination plots against her. An unlikely best film nominee, Elizabeth suggests the moral complexity, especially in that age of Inquisition, heretic-burning, saints, cowards and villains. But mostly it opts for chills and thrills: horror plus romantic tragedy.
For more movies like ELIZABETH (1998) visit Hurawatch.
Also watch: