ELIZABETH (Gramercy) Starring: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes, Christopher Eccleston, Richard Attenborough. Screenplay: Michael Hirst. Producers: Alison Owen, Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan. Director: Shekhar Kapur. MPAA Rating: R (violence, sexual situations, nudity) Running Time: 124 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
It's really rather a slick conceit when you stop to think about it -- telling the tale of the early years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Cate Blanchett) with the Virgin Queen turned into Michael Corleone. This lavish paean to court intrigue begins in 1554, as the ailing Don -- er, Queen Mary (Kathy Burke) -- faces an uncertain future for her empire. Dissension between Catholic and Protestant factions breeds internal conflict; external threats to the near-bankrupt empire loom from both Spain and France. Caught in the middle is Elizabeth, the Protestant heir apparent to her childless Catholic half-sister, who faces losing all semblance of a personal life once she wields responsibility for protecting the interests of the family -- er, nation.
It's all played as grand opera, with the initially uncertain monarch surrounded by advisors of every possible motivation. The Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston), a Catholic advisor to the late Queen Mary, plots to join with Mary, Queen of Scots to overthrow Elizabeth. Sir William (Richard Attenborough), Elizabeth's consigliere, pleads with her to wed and produce an heir as soon as possible to solidify her rule. Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) schools the young queen in the necessity of ruthlessness in the political arena. Even the Pope (John Gielgud) gets into the act, offering what amounts to a heavenly bounty on the queen's heretical head. And then there is Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes), the love of Elizabeth's life who may turn out to be part Kay and part Fredo.
Screenwriter Michael Hirst and director Shekhar Kapur manage to keep all these balls in the air quite deftly, moving back and forth between the machinations of various factions while keeping all the players clearly defined. Ultimately, however, ELIZABETH is more a well-crafted plot structure than a great tragic drama. Only occasionally does Kapur allow us inside the heads of his characters, as he does when Elizabeth shakily rehearses a crucial speech proposing a uniform Church of England. In general the players move from this place to that like pieces in a historical board game, psychology and motivations giving way to who wants to kill whom. As solid as most of the cast members are, they aren't asked to do much more than furrow their brows and skulk.
At least it's all quite a spectacle to behold. ELIZABETH slips back and forth between dark cavernous halls and banner-draped pageantry, allowing a sharp contrast between the private and public life of the queen. The radiant Blanchett makes a wonderful Elizabeth, though her chemistry with Joseph Fiennes isn't nearly as invigorating as it was with brother Ralph in OSCAR AND LUCINDA. It's a consistently engaging film, but one which never crosses over into being truly captivating. While aiming for the epic sweep of a GODFATHER film, the film-makers seem to have forgotten that Coppola created an epic of relationships, not just political alliances. ELIZABETH is that rare film that would have been much better if it had been much longer. If it had offered the chance to feel the personalities of history as well as watch them, it would have been an offer you couldn't refuse.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 GODFATHERS, save the queen: 6.
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