One grand, beautiful scene after the next

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2012)

I love a good Elizabeth movie as much as anyone else. In fact, just a few days before I saw this film, I had seen a 1939 film (Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex) starting Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. It was fascinating to be able to compare these two movies from two different eras, to see how modern cinematography has developed in its depiction of Elizabeth and the late 16th century.
Perhaps unsurprisingly not much has changed with regard to Elizabeth's appearance and clothing. At least in modern movies Elizabeth is allowed to take her make-up and dress off once in a while. Even take baths.
In the 1939 movie, the theme was the love affair between Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex. This 2007 movie is set somewhat earlier, but it also shows the emotional life of Elizabeth, including her feelings for Walter Raleigh.
I thought that the performances in the movie were excellent. Cate Blanchett was marvellous. So was Samantha Morton and Geoffrey Rush. Clive Owen too was really good, especially at the start where he is trying to catch the queen's eye. His tale of making the crossing and reaching the new world was as gripping for the viewer as for Elizabeth. Say what you want about Clive Owen, he's good.
In this movie many of the scenes were achingly beautiful. At times it was like looking at a collection of Old Masters in a museum. The lighting, colour, costumes and rich settings were all used to their best advantage.
The beauty of the scenes became so striking at times, however, that the artifice kept leaping out at me. At times it was so obviously beautiful, so clearly romantic, that it seemed staged and posed.
I really didn't mind this aspect though. I can't get enough of modern attempts to display medieval and renaissance life. Seriously. There must be many fascinating aspects of the period that have yet to be shown on film.
OK, perhaps there was a bit too much jingoism in there. I understand that Elizabeth is a patriotic figure to the English (or at least to English filmmakers), but Elizabeth the virgin guardian angel of England? Elizabeth the warrior queen? Elizabeth the mother of her people? This is wishful thinking on the part of the director and themes that don't work for me. I suspect that English people however swell with patriotism when they see Elizabeth portrayed as a virgin-mother-warrior-angel-queen in full Renaissance finery. Even in the 1939 film the Americans did this in an old-Hollywood sort of way.
The highlight of the movie for me was the execution of Mary and Elizabeth's anguish at what had happened. Morton played this brilliantly. Blanchett brought to life the doubts about it and the horror of it all. Walsingham did what he had to do, but what a mess this conflict between Protestant and Catholic really was. What did bloody Mary do to deserve this?
After the movie I looked it all up on Wikipedia. Mary was actually married to Philip II of Spain. I had forgotten that fascinating detail. History could easily have gone the other way. This movie did not portray the Spanish in a way that I would consider realistic. I'm sure they were not all crazed religious zealots. No more so than English Protestants like Walsingham.
There was somehow a problem with the plot or writing. The film seemed a little disjointed, jumping from one grand, beautiful, melodramatic scene to the next. I was on the director's side right up until the scene where Elizabeth exhorts her troops on horseback. That went too far. Even Cate Blanchett was unable to pull that one off.
Still I enjoyed the film. It's under-rated on IMDb. I'm not sure why.