A Highly Watchable Historical Drama

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 1998)

Pakistani Shekhar Kapur is perhaps the perfect director for "Elizabeth," as he brings to the table an outsider's perspective on the 16th-century ascendancy of England's Queen Elizabeth I, the daughter of King Henry VIII and his sometimes-reviled second wife, Anne Boleyn. This sumptuous historical drama stars Australian Cate Blanchett in the title role. Blanchett brings girlish fragility and abundant womanliness to a character who history too often portrays as the distant and unassailable Virgin Queen, who spent over forty years keeping a court of suitors and yes-men at bay by refusing to marry (and therefore align with) any of them. `Elizabeth' focuses on the first years of the queen's reign, while she was consolidating her power, and when it seemed likely that she would marry, sending England into political disarray.
The men and women orbiting Elizabeth's sun are well portrayed, too. Geoffrey Rush, the star of `Shine,' plays Sir Francis Walsingham with the same kind of Machiavellian cunning that Charlton Heston brought to the role of Cardinal Richelieu in Richard Lester's 1974 `The Four Musketeers.' Christopher Eccleston (Duke of Norfolk) and Joseph Fiennes (Robert Dudley) portray courtiers admirably. And veterans Fanny Ardant (Mary of Guise), Richard Attenborough (Sir William Cecil), and John Gielgud (The Pope) round out a capable cast. Kapur's lush direction and sharp pacing keep `Elizabeth' a highly watchable historical drama in a genre that is too often burdened by plodding, interminable storytelling.