A few days ago I was talking to a friend and we were discussing the definition of "pretentious." I wish I had seen "Elizabeth" then. It is the perfect definition of "pretentious." The film, from it's first frame, considers itself high art. In fact it is dull, laborious, puffed up tripe. Like all works of pretension, it thinks of itself as art but fails on every level.

One of the worse problems, other than no script, dull direction and pompous acting, is it's use of Joseph Fiennes as a bad guy. Well, he's supposed to be a good guy who does a bad thing. But the film's script is so understandable, that we are not quite sure what it is he has done. He is romantic as a love interest for the titular "Elizabeth," but the film makes a villain out of him and those of us in the audience will never forgive it for this. Worse yet, he is an ill- defined villain, so we are unsure of his exact crimes. After just seeing him a few days earlier in the awesome "Shakespeare in Love," to see him misused here is nothing  but sad.

The script here is a shambles. I defy anyone to tell me what happens in the film except in the most broad definitions. You cannot figure it out unless, perhaps, you are a history scholar. The film introduces the tension to us with title cards that explain that the current queen is Henry VIII's daughter and a catholic. Her half-sister, daughter of Henry and Ann Boleyn, is a protestant. This is important. Why? We are never really sure. The friction between protestants and catholics at this time remain a mystery to us. Likewise, the historical allegiances between countries at this time are never clearly defined. There is talk of France and Spain and Mary Queen of Scotts and stuff but it's all jumbled and unintelligible. Maybe it's lost on a common US resident like myself. All we do find out is that the catholic daughter Mary dies and "Elizabeth" comes into power. Why her sister never has her killed as a heretic, although she threatens it, is unclear. 

The film's chief interesting quality is Cate Blanche as "Elizabeth" I. Her chief allure is that she consistently walks the line between beautiful and ugly without ever clearly being one or the other. I'm no judge of  feminine beauty but I can tell you her chameleon-like appearance never ceases to amaze me. She probably got the part because she looks like a young Judy Dench. She's not much of an actress, however, falling into the style of the bloated over dramatic acting that permeates the film. 

One of the film's worse problems is that age old issue of utilizing homosexuals as villains. Geoffrey Rush portrays Walsingham normally and we are left to infer that he is gay because he is always in the company of attractive young men. But in his first scene, he kills his apparent young love in a way that is nothing but nauseating. I guess it's supposed to show that he is unafraid to do whatever is necessary to protect himself and achieve his aims, an idea that is furthered in the film's ensuing non-plot. But the truth is, like all gay villains, it once again portrays a homosexual as a bloodthirsty lout with no seeming compassion or conscious. The film may try to revert this idea as the plot progresses, but it is too late. The only other "gay" character in the film, other than Rush and his concubines, is a silly yet amusing Price who turns out to be a transvestite. It's just rude.

Historians have fallen all over themselves trying to decide whether the film is more historically accurate or more fine art fiction. It is in fact neither. Students of history hoping to learn something will be at the best, mislead, at the worst, confused. Those hoping to see art will only have a fraud perpetrated upon them.

"Elizabeth" is boring, confused, chaos splayed across the screen in a faux grandiosity masquerading as art. It's the kind of self-important crap that the Academy loves to nominate thinking it an illustration of art and craftsmanship. Director Shekhar Kapur (any relation to Depak?) does not have any idea how to craft a film. The opening sequences are all shot dizzyingly from overheard as if we were high above the action (literally and morally) when supposed heretics are burned at the stake. It just makes your head hurt to view it, nothing more. It's rather silly. The actors he chooses are either poor or misused. And his editing skills are lackluster at best. This is not a film. It's a pretentious atrocity perpetrated on the American film viewer by puffed up foreigner's hoping to pull a cinematic fast one. Noting the several Oscar nods it received, they succeeded.

Note: Sometimes in foreign languages with subtitles.

Written by Michael Hurst. Also with Sir Richard Attenborough. Sir John Gielgud (yawn) appears for about 20 seconds. Jean-Pieere Leaud has a small role.

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