Lessons to be learned

Rating: 8/10 (4 February 1999)

There is something to be learned from this film. I do not know if the director intended his film to be an exposition of the extremes of religious intolerance (still rife in India and other areas of fundamentalism as well as in Northern Ireland)but this film was a timely reminder that our own history (I speak as an Englishmen) is littered with the corpses of those slain (sometimes horribly) because of their beliefs or those of their neighbours. Kate Blanchett as Elizabeth was compelling, Geoffrey Rush was a chilling Walsingham (Peter Mandelson eat your heart out) and Joseph Fiennes was good as Leicester both cutting a dash and defeated at the end. Christopher Eccleston burned throughout the film as the driven but evil Norfolk and Amanda Ryan as Lettice Howard aka Lady Macbeth was also memorable in a relatively minor part. See it.