ELIZABETH A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Liz is a hot-blooded young woman with a sexy young lover. No, not the young Elizabeth Taylor. The clock is on English time, and it's set to 1554. The woman in question is Queen Elizabeth I, and the movie, ELIZABETH, covers the time just before and after the 25-year-old woman is crowned queen.
Indian director Shekhar Kapur's vision of Elizabeth is as a modern heroine, lover, and ruler. Michael Hirst's script advances that view by giving her dialog as fresh and bland as a modern novel. Typical of the insipid lines, are Elizabeth's statements, "I do not like wars. They have uncertain outcomes."
With the lovely and intelligent Cate Blanchett, from OSCAR AND LUCINDA, cast as the lead, the movie bursts with potential. The largely wasted supporting cast includes SHINE's Geoffrey Rush, JUDE's Christopher Eccleston, STEALING BEAUTY's Joseph Fiennes, JURASSIC PARK's Richard Attenborough, COLONEL CHABERT's Fanny Ardant, SHADOWLANDS's Edward Hardwicke, and even Sir John Gielgud in a cameo as the Pope.
Even with all of this promise, the film cries out for a one-word review: Confusing.
With lavish sets by John Myhre, luxurious costumes by Alexandra Byrne, radiant cinematography by Remi Adefarasin and stirring music by David Hirschfelder, the film is a treat for the eyes and the ears, except for the dialog. With the center speakers turned off, the movie would make a top-rated silent picture.
The writer and director get the visuals perfect but have great difficulty in creating a coherent story. Even those, like myself, who consider themselves students of English history will have trouble following the movie's details. Filmed on the dark side, many of the characters, who look similar, dart in and out of scenes without ever establishing motivations for their actions. Elizabeth's part is well developed, but the supporting cast all have underwritten roles. Although the overall setup for the story is clear, I posit that if they were to have a pop quiz at end of the movie, most audiences would have trouble identifying the characters and explaining their roles.
The movie opens with Queen Mary, a.k.a., Bloody Mary, having English citizens burned at the stake for rejecting the "one-true Catholic Church." She imprisons her Protestant, half-sister Elizabeth with the hopes of hanging a charge of treason on her. "Why must we tear ourselves apart with the small question of religion?" Elizabeth asks her accusers as she is thrown in prison in the Tower of London
Elizabeth is a lithe, stunning and levelheaded beauty. In contrast, pudgy Queen Mary (Kathy Burke) seems a paranoid lunatic. When Mary dies, Elizabeth inherits a bankrupt kingdom with no army. A rebellious Mary of Guise hosts hostile French troops ready to make war on England.
The rest of the movie has a swarm of supporting characters in a convoluted series of conspiratorial subplots. The machinations are as thick as they are confusing. To develop them into a comprehensible story, the filmmakers should either have added an extra hour to the film's length or eliminated some of them. Do we really need a royal cross-dressing bisexual scene?
If writer Hirst and director Kapur are successful with this modern adaptation of the story of Queen Elizabeth I, the future possibilities are limitless and potentially appalling. Perhaps, Christian Slater as Julius Caesar? Hirst could give him some snappy dialog like, "Hey Brutus, what you doin' here?" Please, no.
ELIZABETH runs 2:04. It is rated R for violence, sex and nudity and would be fine for most teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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