Review: Elizabeth (1998)

What provides 'Elizabeth' with a good deal of tension? As a viewer, it is not being sure that the woman who lends her name to the period will survive.

We know she flourished, of course, but the early days of her reign were assailed by divers types of intrigues: social, political, even sexual. And it is always fascinating to follow a figure when failure is not yet an impossibility.

We are quickly introduced to the religious persecution that went on in Great Britain in the 1550's. Three Protestants are brutally shaved and tied to a mammoth stake, the square filled with onlookers. A bishop of the Roman Church presides at the spectacle, and his very words, directed to the victims of the impending auto-de-fe, show the terrible results of politics mixing with religion.

Princess Elizabeth appears first outdoors, dancing with her ladies in waiting. But she soon suffers the wrath of her half sister, Mary Tudor, the ailing Queen. Imprisoned and then released, Elizabeth is warned not to consort with anyone perceived as dangerous to the Crown. Various factions form, a Catholic one led by the Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston), a Protestant one led by Sir William Cecil (Sir Richard Attenborough) and Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush). There are other players in the political intrigue, such as Mary of Guise (Fanny Ardant), and various ambassadors and underlings. After Elizabeth ascends the throne, she continues her affair of the heart with Sir Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes), but the reality of ruling sobers her attitude considerably. The realm's coffers are depleted, its army and navy ineffectual. France and Spain are enemies waiting for a chance to consume the entire island. Does she have it in her to transform her callow and impish demeanor? She is the daughter of Henry VIII, after all.

Already the recipient of a Best Actress Award from the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), Cate Blanchett is riveting in the role of the Virgin Queen (the film's slightly sarcastic subtitle). Blanchett's Elizabeth is vibrant and principled, spirited and sharp, beautiful and bitter. In a very demanding role, Blanchett is able to assume an air of originality, a quiet determination to find or create the inspiration she will need to preserve the traditions and power of the monarchy. Look for Blanchett's face on the big screen for years to come, and her name on many nomination lists.

Geoffrey Rush is just as strong. As Francis Walsingham, a man returning to court after a period of exile, Rush depicts consummate dedication to Queen Elizabeth I. Walsingham is charged with protecting the Queen, and he immerses himself in the arduous task of security. There's a slight resemblance between Walsingham and Inspector Javert, whom Rush played in the recent remake of 'Les Miserables.' Javert is nearly psychotic in his pursuit of the quasi-saint, Jean Valjean; Walsingham's hunting of those disloyal to the Crown is almost as obsessive. Much is implied by the script, perhaps a weak point: perhaps we could have seen more of this early Renaissance knight commanding his forces. We see him only once giving orders to a spy. Still, Rush assists in a steady building of plot, until the film resonates with the overtones of power and ambition and love of country.

As Sir Robert Dudley, Joseph Fiennes gives a sturdy performance. His part demands him to be first a sincere lover and later a treasonous outcast. Fiennes plays the range well, except that at times he seems too arch, his chin beard and cocked brow the harbingers of cliché. He is good here, but better as the Bard of Stratford in 'Shakespeare in Love', a fortuitous companion piece whose humor compliments the historical tone of 'Elizabeth'.

'Sumptuous' is an apt word for the costumes and cinematography. They function in tandem to create a visual banquet of images. The few peasants we see are appropriately scruffy. More noticeably, the noblemen who are the focus of 'Elizabeth' are outfitted expertly. The retinues of Queens Mary and Elizabeth are stunningly coordinated, and all the accoutrements worn by Blanchett are painstaking in their detail. My only criticism is the black leather look of the traitors, particularly the garb of the main villain, Norfolk. But the look of the film is memorable, to say the least. Like the momentum of the plot, the beauty of the photography causes the viewer a degree of awe; toward the end there is a retrospective montage, almost a collage of greatest visual hits, that summarizes the rise and, more importantly, the growth of Elizabeth into a mature head of state.

Shekhar Kapur has accomplished a remarkable feat for a director with only a few films behind him. The scenes are well shot, especially ones that exploit the mood of such a period piece - bishops held in a dingy cell, Walsingham looking down on them from a low-angle vantage. And at the end, as Elizabeth assumes the aspect of born-again virgin, she becomes an icon of power and pallor, her servants applying the lead and arsenic to her skin. As the undisputed ruler she crosses a roomful of admiring subjects, and for an instant she gets almost too close to the camera. For an instant we are too close to this monarch. Then we cut away to see the young but stern Elizabeth more distantly, and we glimpse the bright future of the British Empire.