Article summary

One of the big Elizabethan-era films of 1998, Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth serves up a brimming goblet of religious tension, political conspiracy, sex, violence and war. England in 1554 is in financial and religious turmoil as the ailing Queen "Bloody" Mary attempts to restore Catholicism as the national faith. She has no heir, and her greatest fear--that her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth will assume the throne after her death--is realised. Still, the late Queen Mary has her loyalists. The newly crowned Elizabeth finds herself knee-deep in dethroning schemes while also dodging assassination attempts. Her advisers (including Sir William Cecil, superbly played by Richard Attenborough) beg her to marry any one of her would-be suitors to stabilise England's empire. No matter that she already has a lover. The passionate Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes) is married, however, and shows he cannot stand up to the growing strength of the Queen. With the help of her aide Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth strikes against her enemies before they get to her first. But her rise ultimately entails rejecting love and marriage to redefine herself as the indisputable Virgin Queen.

Cate Blanchett's Oscar-nominated performance as the naive and vibrant princess who becomes the stubborn and knowing queen is both severe and sympathetic. Her ethereal, pale beauty is equal parts fire and ice, her delivery of such lines as "There will be only one mistress here and no master!" expressed with command rather than hysterics. As striking as Blanchett's performance is the film's lavish and dramatic production design. The cold, dark sets paired with the lush costuming show the golden age of England's monarchy emerging from the Middle Ages. Rich velvet brushes over the dank stones while power is achieved at any price, and with such attention to physical detail, Elizabeth fully immerses you into its compelling chronicle of pioneering feminism and revisionist history. --Shannon Gee

One of the big Elizabethan-era films of 1998, Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth serves up a brimming goblet of religious tension, political conspiracy, sex, violence, and war. England in 1554 is in financial and religious turmoil as the ailing Queen "Bloody" Mary attempts to restore Catholicism as the national faith. She has no heir, and her greatest fear--that her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth will assume the throne after her death--is realized. Still, the late Queen Mary has her loyalists. The newly crowned Elizabeth finds herself knee-deep in dethroning schemes while also dodging assassination attempts. Her advisers (including Sir William Cecil, superbly played by Richard Attenborough) beg her to marry any one of her would-be suitors to stabilize England's empire. No matter that she already has a lover. The passionate Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes) is married, however, and shows he cannot stand up to the growing strength of the Queen. With the help of her aide Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth strikes against her enemies before they get to her first. But her rise ultimately entails rejecting love and marriage to redefine herself as the indisputable Virgin Queen.

Customer's review

Over-rated "Historical" Fiction

While on the surface, a good movie with mostly fine acting, it suffers substantially by a loss of integrity; revisionist history, with a strong feminist bent, that is enough to turn off any historically educated, or for that matter, fair-minded, individual.

For the set who don't mind this type of revisionism only; e.g., those who liked the movie, U-571, in which Americans are shown to have stole the decoding machine from the Nazis -- of course, in REAL LIFE the Brits did that, and in a much less dramatic way than the movie shows... It might make our American friends feel patriotic, but hardly for good reason, hence it rings hollow... Stick to fiction or history!!

Cheers.

The First Half of The Virgin Queen's Reign

Elizabeth is a beautifully shot film directed by Shekhar Kapur. The cast was a whose who of future stars and past cinema giants. The cast includes Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Kelly MacDonald, Daniel Craig, Vincent Cassel, Emily Mortimer, Richard Attenborough, Fanny Ardant, Joseph Fiennes and of course Cate Blanchett. It is screen legend John Gielgud's final picture before his death at the age of 96 and he gets to play the Pope. English pop singer Lily Allen also appears in a small role when she was just 12 years old. The film portrays the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. She is the [...] child of King Henry VIII and Anne Bolyn, and was queen for 45 years starting in 1558 and until her death. The period she ruled was often regarded as the most significant period of growth in England's past. Her legacy is a positive one and she is often recognized as the most highly regarded British monarch in history.

The film follows how Elizabeth became queen after Mary I of England's death. It deals with many issues regarding the fact that she is Protestant and was imprisoned for allegations that she planned to assassinate Queen Mary I. She is released when Mary I dies and Elizabeth becomes queen. Many conspire against her, from Catholics to the Scots and the French. It also follows Elizabeth's love affair with Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes). The film ends fittingly with Elizabeth's reign entering stability just before the beginning of the English Renaissance. I say fittingly because a sequel to Elizabeth is being released this fall and it will no doubt exhibit the true nature of Elizabeth's legacy and the reverence held toward her to this day. It covers a more interesting period in my opinion.

I actually had a problem with the concept of this film. The nature of this period in Elizabeth's life didn't sit well with me in terms of transferring to a motion picture. The way liberties are taken with historical facts inject drama effectively and actually makes up for what should've been a fairly anti-climactic story. So her life becomes a bit of soap opera. Part of me thinks that if the film was pure history it still could've been good but perhaps not has marketable. I found it enjoyable either way. The sets and costumes are incredible and the cinematography is also worth praising. The real strength in Elizabeth is Cate Blanchett. She is the best actress of this generation and is amazing here. This may not seem like a timely review (it's about eight years overdue) but with the sequel coming out I recommend seeing Elizabeth. The sequel has Samantha Morton as Elizabeth's antagonist Mary, Queen of Scots and Clive Owen as Walter Raleigh. No doubt its release for the fall is setting it up for some major awards.

"I will have one mistress here and no master !"

The beginning of this movie is quite shocking: people being tortured, and shouting. We learn that they are Protestants, and that they don't agree with the religious beliefs of Queen Mary (Kathy Burke), a Catholic. Soon enough, a young woman is also arrested. She is Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett), stepsister to Mary, and a Protestant. Elizabeth is accused of treason, and sent to the Tower, in order to wait for her fate to be decided...

Of course, nothing happens, and our main character continues to live allowing the film to continue, but those first scenes give us a glimpse of what kind of life Elizabeth must have led in her youth, amid constant fear of execution and whispers of betrayal. Not much afterwards, though, Queen Mary dies and Elizabeth becomes Elizabeth I. She will have more power, but also new responsibilities and different threats...

Elizabeth will have to deal with the pressure of most of her advisors to choose soon among the candidates that have asked for her hand in marriage, but she is unable to marry the one she loves, Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes). She is surrounded by many Catholic-led conspiracies, and by quite a few that wish her ill, starting by the powerful Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston). Despite that, and thanks to her inner strenght and the counsel of a new advisor, Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth slowly becomes a ruler who is not afraid to make difficult decisions to stay in power, even if that involves killing those who plot against her. She seems to remember that "I am my father's daughter. I am not afraid of anything".

I believe that this movie tackles quite well the idea of how difficult it was to be a woman with power in Elizabeth's time, and how far a female ruler had to go to retain that power. The cast is superb, although I think that it is possible to say that Cate Blanchett's performance is the most remarkable one. I would like to add that the art direction was quite good, and that it helped to recreate the atmosphere of days long gone...

Of course, I am aware of the fact that this film is full of historical inaccuracies, but I already knew that it wasn't a documentary. Despite that, "Elizabeth" left me wanting to know more about the period in which all these events happened, and I am probably going to read a book on it :)

On the whole, I highly recommend this film. It is interesting, and different. "Elizabeth" doesn't have much to do with historical reality, but it was inspired by it, and it might spur you to learn more about the period through other sources. What is more important, you will get at least a clue of what drove a young woman like Elizabeth to remain single, married only to England...

Belen Alcat

sumptuous & stunning

i adored this film,
it is a sumptuous production, the cast list itself is dazzling, cate makes a great queen bess, being the precocious, high-spirited young girl, to the newly crowned queen, being violently awakened to the role she has inherited, to the jaded & disillusioned older queen.
visually cate portrays regal grace & elegance & also the vanity that apparently was this queen's achilles!
joseph fiennes expresses a puppy dog devotion, but shows more conscience & less ruthless cunning than is legend of dudley's ambitions.
emily mortimer playing kat ashley, who i believe was in reality, quite an elderly woman, being elizabeth's childhood nanny.
geoffrey rush is totally excellent as walsingham, being so fiercely devoted to HM & viciously protective, to any lengths! against any threats to her.
also, attenborough is a good lord burley, portraying a stuffy, traditional & missionary atttitude & judgement.
one of my favourite characters here is norfolk (chris eccleston) as he plays such an evil & jealous role so brilliantly, with sour expressions & resentment with every breath,
also daniel craig's screen presence within his role is quite stunning.
there is an all-star cast & a colourful array of characters, whether factual or fictional, greatly entertaining, & the whole production is artisticly created & beautiful to watch, the whole project showing it was created with such care & attention to detail.

Entertaining, but wildly inaccurate

If you're not bothered by historical inaccuracies, then go ahead and check out this movie. It's extremely well-acted for the most part, although Fiennes's Dudley turns milksop in an entirely fictitious turn of events that aligns him with a Catholic plot to replace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots (whose death in the movie is all wrong, too). Events from decades later are all condensed into what is clearly supposed to be the first year or two of Elizabeth's reign (which begain in 1558): Norfolk didn't rebel until the Northern Rebellion in 1569; Elizabeth wasn't excommunicated until 1570; she didn't even enter the Anjou courtship until 1578; and Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded in public, not murdered in her bed, and that not until almost thirty years later, in 1587! Furthermore, in 1558 Lord Robert Dudley was not yet Earl of Leicester (he wouldn't be until Elizabeth gave him that title in 1564, and he was NEVER a duke!), and as another reviewer has pointed out, there's certainly more drama and intrigue in his REAL story than the movie allows -- he was rumored to have murdered his wife, Amy Robsart, after all.

I won't go on, but my point is that there is a hell of a lot wrong with the storyline that didn't even need to be wrong. It's still an entertaining movie, as I mentioned before, and Cate Blanchett really does deliver an exceptional performance. But at least some sort of gesture towards a measure of historical accuracy would have been appreciated.

Elizabeth

Article summary

Customer's review

Over-rated "Historical" Fiction

The First Half of The Virgin Queen's Reign

"I will have one mistress here and no master !"

sumptuous & stunning

Entertaining, but wildly inaccurate

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