A flawless script but direction was a little heavy-handed

Rating: 8/10 (3 May 1999)

Historical dramas tend towards exaggeration. This seems to have been fairly loyal to the historical record, at least at the "royals" characters. Acting was wonderful, especially Cate Blanchett. Costumes, equally, and the sets/locations were quite good. Direction was a tad heavy-handed, as though the director was still learning a lot about his craft -- a lot of imitation of other films -- and the lighting sometimes undermined the message by some heavy-handed effects more appropriate to teenagers' TV shows. But he used his players well, and got unifomly good performances out of them. A fine fine film. Top 10 for the year.