Lonely at the Top.

Rating: 6/10 (21 February 2006)

Elizabeth starts out as a gay young girl and winds up alone on a throne, painted like a corpse, omnipotent, friendless, full of tragic grandeur like Al Pacino at the end of The Godfather II. "The Godmother"? No -- hardly that.
This is the most complex of the few movies I've seen that deal with the reign of Elizabeth I. John Ford's "Mary of Scotland" was really about Mary and its message was simple-minded: the Catholics were good and the Calvinists bad. In "The Sea Hawk," we learned that it was an almighty good thing for Flora Robson to have Errol Flynn on her side. Vanessa Redgrave, in "Mary, Queen of Scots", taught us that the queen who leads with her head and not with her heart wins.
"Elizabeth" doesn't have such an easily stated message. It's an expensive costume romantic drama that has dozens of characters and at least twice that many intrigues.
As for the religious part of the conflict, the Catholics come off the worst, although the Protestants don't exactly shine either. A priest comes from France, murders people, and tries more than once to assassinate Elizabeth -- once by "poisoning her dress." (How do you do that?) And it's amazing, really, how many of the people Elizabeth has known all her life turn out to be secret Catholic traitors, hiding in holes and whatnot. The headsman is kept busy and the climax contrasts the executions and the lopped-off heads with the ritual purity of Elizabeth's coronation, again vide "The Godfather."
Thinking it over, I'm not sure there is a moral behind this epic at all. Maybe, like "The Godfather", it is meant to show us that it's powerful lonely at the top. It also twigs us to the fact that when Elizabeth is referred to as a "virgin queen," the term is used figuratively. I think, if I had been her counselor, I'd have had the answer to all the religious troubles and the competition with France, Scotland, and Spain and all that dreary stuff.
I'd have made sure she married the incestuous, foolish Duc d'Anjou. Okay, he was a cross-dressing pouf, but so what? Elizabeth already spoke French, so the language wouldn't have been a problem. The Duc could have handled the money, and he would know where the best restaurants were hidden. And besides, in addition to getting an amusing sometime-lover, she would have had access to a region that cultivates fine pears and produces a respectable rosÃ©.
Pshaw, you say. The marriage wouldn't have worked out. I reply: how many marriages do you know that DO work out? And there is always divorce, isn't there? After all, Elizabeth's Old Man invented it. Oh -- and another thing. If we're all going to conspire against one another and go about chopping off heads because of religious differences, let's get rid of religions. We could all become serious Pantheists. That would satisfy everybody, from the rabid Evangelicals to the Green Party.
Some advice: After watching this movie, for a good tickle, go to some of the news boards and read all the venomous comments about how the Moslems keep fighting each other.
But, all seriousness aside, the movie's worth seeing. The locations and production design are splendid. The music opulent. The acting just fine on everyone's part, including John Gielgud in a tiny unsympathetic role as the Pope. Cate Blanchett is luminously beautiful but not in a typical Hollywood way. She has a pale elongated face and an anole's eyes that are expressive slits. At its best, the film is an elaborate panorama and at it's least, an amuse-bouche.