Elizabeth

3.5/4

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes, Christopher Eccelston, Richard Attenborough, John Gielgud

Rated R for Violence and Sexuality

Historical biopics are a dime-a-dozen.  Subjects include everyone from underground cartoonist Harvey Pekar (“American Splendor,” unseen by me) to Jesus Christ (“The Passion of the Christ,” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” you pick).  I suppose that it’s not especially surprising that England’s most famous and powerful female monarch, Elizabeth I, gets her own movie (she actually has two, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” was released nearly a decade later).  Thankfully, the film’s quality befits the legendary queen.

England, 1554, as the film’s opening caption informs us.  Henry VIII is dead, and England is divided between Catholics and Protestants.  Mary (Kathy Burke) is a devout Catholic, but she has no son (and later dies without child).  Her sister, Elizabeth (Blanchett), is Protestant, which terrifies the nation’s Catholics when she takes the throne.  Although she does become crowned Queen of England, she is by no means safe.  There are people all around her who would like nothing better than to see her head on a spike.  And if she isn’t careful, that may actually happen.

There are a number of top notch aspects of the movie: the performances, the setting/costume design, for example.  There are also a few aspects of the movie that fail to measure up, like the plot and Joseph Fiennes.

Save for the aforementioned Fiennes, the acting is excellent across the board.  Chief among them is Cate Blanchett, who was previously an unknown.  If there’s any reason why this movie got so much acclaim and attention, it’s because of her.  The reasons for that are obvious: she gives a fantastic performance, although since she’s matched it again and again with every other film she’s been in, her work in “Elizabeth” is no longer as mindblowing.  Elizabeth is young and naiive, but also tough and intelligent.  She learns quickly and knows what kind of person she must become in order to be an effective ruler.  She’s quite simply amazing to watch.

She is surrounded by an amazing cast of character actors.  Richard Attenborough is her trusted advisor, Geoffrey Rush is her spider-like spy/protector, and Christopher Eccelston gives a truly chilling performance as the Duke of Norfolk, a Catholic who plots her demise.  Small roles are given to the likes of acclaimed French actress Fanny Ardant (as Mary of Guise, one of Elizabeth’s many enemies), John Gielgud as Pope Pius V and future James Bond Daniel Craig as a priest turned assassin.  Vincent Cassel, who seems to be drawn to loopy and eccentric characters, provides some comic relief as the boorish, child-like Duc d’Anjou.  

The only one who doesn’t work is Joseph Fiennes, as Elizabeth’s love interest, Robert Dudley.  Although there are moments when he is effective, he’s very wooden and over-the-top for the most part.  Ironically, he had the lead in the other Elizabethan-themed movie that year, the much overrated “Shakespeare in Love, and he was awful in that movie too.

The set design and the direction are also worth noting.  The costumes are sumptuous, and director Shekar Kapur makes great use of the setting to really transport us back to the mid-1500s.  The film is a feast for the eyes.  The film’s score, by David Hirschfelder, is dark, dramatic and scary.

Unfortunately, it’s not as successful for the mind.  The plot is both too complex and too simple, and some of the dialogue doesn’t work.  Fortunately, the latter is only noticeable to an ultra astute viewer (like a film critic).

The MPAA gave this film a richly deserved R-rating, but their reasoning is deceptively simple: violence and sexuality.  That’s the understatement of the year.  This film is horrifically violent, guaranteed to shock even the most hardened viewer.  Three people are burned at the stake (which because of the way it was filmed, acted and accompanied by Hirschfelder’s threatening score, is incredibly disturbing), a man is brutally beaten to death with a rock, and another is graphically tortured.  The sex scenes, on the other hand, are limited and relatively harmless.

So what do I rate this film?  Every time I see it, I seem to give it a different rating.  When I first saw it, it was a definite four star movie.  Then it was a three-and-a-half, then two-and-a-half, then three, and so on.  It’s a very good movie, so why don’t I just split the difference and give it a three-and-a-half?