A queen captured
There is nothing quite like a good English costume drama, and although Elizabeth goes back in time from the more recent Merchant Ivory adaptations, it still boasts a surprisingly modern sensibility.
Long before Emily Pankhurst even dreamed up the idea of suffragettes, Elizabeth I was the ultimate feminist. But how did she become the white-faced Virgin Queen who arose from a messy succession battle to bring much-needed stability for the latter half of the 16th century? Thanks to a tour-de-force from the Oscar-nominated Australian Cate Blanchett - surely this was a Best Actress performance, with all respects to Gwyneth Paltrow - Elizabeth brings a new and interesting insight into the isolated monarch, who starts off the film as a young innocent girl but is hardened to become the regal Elizabeth we're all familiar with.
One note of caution, however: Elizabeth is not a history lesson, and for those unfamiliar with the era, it may be wise to bone up before entering first-time director Shekhar Kapur's world.
Elsewhere, his direction is a little shaky: he utilises far too many overhead shots, seems afraid of the close-up and the script falls victim to histrionics by the end. (Elizabeth painting her face to the crescendo of Mozart's Requiem, for example, which was not composed until almost two centuries later. Isn't that a little too insistent?) But Elizabeth is still engrossing, used as we are to a cinematic depiction of a pasty-faced and rotten-toothed monarch (Judi Dench most recently in Shakespeare In Love but you can always go back to Glenda Jackson in Elizabeth R or even Bette Davis in The Virgin Queen for reference). This starts off with Elizabeth being imprisoned by her sickly Catholic sister Mary (Kathy Burke in a revolting cameo), expecting the axe to fall at any time.
She fills her days playing games with her girlfriends and falling in love with the young Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Joseph Fiennes, not a very strong portrayal) who will end up betraying the young monarch. But her fledgling court is full of intrigue and double-crossing as Elizabeth's perfidious advisers, expecting a compliant puppet Queen, race against each other to marry her off to the most strategically advantageous suitor (will it be France, as represented in court by bejewelled ambassador-cum-footballer Eric Cantona? Or Spain?) But Elizabeth quickly proves that she has a mind of her own and the iron will necessary to bring her through court dramas - even the potentially fatal ones, such as monks lurching in slow motion from the cloistered shadows wielding daggers, not to mention the poisoned frocks.
Apart from the gorgeous costumes we have come to expect from a top-notch British costume drama - and Elizabeth is exquisite on this front - Kapur's film features sumptuous production design and is of the highest quality technically.
Elizabeth sometimes falters in tone and can veer close to portentous ridiculousness, but Blanchett's central performance (she is the most expressive of actresses) completely carries the film.
The movie also boasts a raft of cameo performances from top British and Australian talent; see if you can spot Christopher Eccleston, Geoffrey Rush and Sir John Gielgud in here.
Elizabeth opens on September 16
