A masterpiece - but three things may bother some...

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 2002)

SOME SPOILERS
The story is gripping. The acting is of an order rarely encountered - especially Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth. The costumes, the sets, the photography, the atmosphere, the whole direction of the film, all are magnificent. The film should have won several Oscars, and it nearly did. But viewers may wish to be aware of three other things about Elizabeth.

The first is that this film is not history. Probably its makers never intended it to be history. Many viewers, however, will assume that it is. They will be gravely mistaken. Take, for instance, the central figure of Sir Francis Walsingham, who - apart from Elizabeth herself - dominates the story in increasing measure. He is portrayed in a manner that opens up an impassable gulf between his film persona and the real Walsingham. In real life, Walsingham was a devout, convinced, spiritually minded Protestant believer. In the film, he is portrayed (brilliantly, by Geoffrey Rush) as having no religious convictions at all: in his opening scene, he even doubts whether God exists. He is also depicted as a ruthless murderer, untroubled by any constraints of conscience. Such a travesty leaves one with a sense of grave injustice to the real, deeply Christian Walsingham.

Further, the film presents Walsingham as a sort of machiavellian uncle figure to Elizabeth, her wisest guide in politics and the inspiration behind her transformation into the `virgin queen'. In reality, Elizabeth hardly ever took Walsingham's advice, often subjecting him to outbursts of abuse, and driving him to distraction by her refusal to support the Protestant cause abroad, especially in the Netherlands, as he so earnestly wished her to do. Again, in his film role as Elizabeth's advisor, he is portrayed as a middle aged man, counterpointing Elizabeth's youth. The real Walsingham, by contrast, was a mere youngster of 28 when Elizabeth (herself 25) succeeded to the throne. Of Walsingham's involvement in the assassination of Mary of Guise, history - unlike the film - knows nothing. First, Mary of Guise was not assassinated, but died of natural causes; and second, at the time of her death in 1560, Walsingham was not even in Elizabeth's service.
As for the other main male character, Robert Dudley (played by Ralph Fiennes), the film appears to have conflated him with his successor as Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Devereux. Devereux led a treasonous rebellion against Elizabeth and paid with his head. In the film, Dudley participates in a Roman Catholic plot to dethrone Elizabeth and almost pays with his head, but is spared by Elizabeth, albeit he is permanently disgraced. The real Dudley never took part in any rebellion, and never lost Elizabeth's favour.
I have said enough to convey my point. This film is not history. It is a highly imaginative rewriting of history, as though from a parallel universe where there were similar people in similar circumstances, but where their characters and chronology were wildly different from our universe. Perhaps if watched in that spirit, the film may provide a kind of bizarre entertainment. Or maybe we should simply accept very frankly that what we are watching was never meant to tell the real story, but is simply a story in its own right which happens to use certain figures loosely based on English history. For all I know, this was the conscious intention of the film-makers (although the opening and closing titles suggest otherwise). I merely warn the unwary viewer who may deceive himself into thinking that he is watching a slice of real English history.
The second thing viewers may wish to be aware of is that the film's view of religion is - well, very unreligious. As we have just seen, Sir Francis Walsingham, the architect of Elizabeth's Protestant regime, is portrayed as an unscrupulous cynic. Elizabeth's own religion fares better: she very probably was the vague undogmatic quasi-ecumenist that the film depicts her as being. But her Roman Catholic opponents are an unsavoury bunch. When the priest arrives in England from Rome, bearing the pope's edict of excommunication against Elizabeth, the first thing he does is recognise one of Norfolk's servants as a spy in the service of Walsingham, and proceeds to smash his brains out with a rock in a pool of seawater. Not an endearing role model for any Roman Catholic training for the priesthood. In short, none of the characters have anything that resembles a real, spiritually meaningful faith. (And just why is one of the Protestants being burnt for heresy at the film's opening mumbling prayers in Latin? Is he a crypto-Roman-Catholic? Or, more likely, did the film-makers not really understand the difference between 16th century Protestants and Roman Catholics?)
The third and final thing some viewers may wish to know is that there are two scenes where sexual intercourse is fairly obviously depicted, between Dudley and one of Elizabeth's maids, and between the Duke of Norfolk and his female partner (who turns out to be a spy in Walsingham's pay). Both scenes are pointlessly gratuitous. There is also a scene where Dudley and Elizabeth make love, but this is presented quite tastefully. Why film-makers feel themselves under an obligation to insert such scenes, which add nothing to the story, neither advancing the plot nor providing striking insights into the characters, is a mystery. Except, of course, that it isn't really a mystery. It is simply pandering to the audience's perceived wish to enjoy some sex scenes.
These three factors - the film's capacity to deceive the viewer into a radically false conception of English history, its floundering with respect to the nature of religion, and the two gratuitous sex scenes - mar (for me) what is, from a purely aesthetic point of view, an exhilarating masterpiece.