Susan Granger's review of "ELIZABETH" (Gramercy Pictures)
If President Clinton watched this film, he might find a way out of his current dilemma using historical precedent. He could simply declare himself a virgin! That's what Queen Elizabeth I did when her lover betrayed her. Not only did she repudiate all her previous romps between the sheets but, according to screenwriter Michael Hirst, she never indulged in pleasures of the flesh again! Directed by Dehli-based Shekar Kapur ("Bandit Queen"), this Tudor tale begins with three Protestants being burned at the stake. If you weren't a Catholic, that was your fate under zealous Queen Mary I. Mercifully, after Mary's death in November, 1558, her half-sister Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was proclaimed Queen of England. This young girl (Cate Blanchett), returns from exile along with her childhood sweetheart, Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes) to attend to matters of state - which include her country's bankruptcy, lack of army, and serious threats from abroad. Her chief advisor (Richard Attenborough) quickly warns her, "Until you marry and produce an heir, you will find no security." But she's not eager to do either - in fact, she never does, despite proposals from both Spain and France. Instead, she relies on her dour, enigmatic Master of Spies (Geoffrey Rush) to guide her from sensual dalliances into developing her supreme authority, which eventually includes chopping off her red hair, painting her face dead white, and eschewing men. "How many people have worshipped and died for this woman?" she muses, gazing at her inspiration: the Virgin Mary. Filled with incessant intrigue and boudoir betrayals, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Elizabeth" is a powerful, pungent 7. Consider this: Queen Elizabeth I bathed only once a year and even that was considered excessive.
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