Saw "Elisabeth" last night. Well, it
was quite boring. It was neither the suspenseful thriller that
was advertised, nor even the feminist emergence into battleship
womanhood that the film was trying desperately to convey, nor the
lurid tale of Machiavellian political intrigue that it also tried
to be.
Everything was muted by the incompetence with
which the story was told. After a while, the plot seemed to run
out of steam because although everybody kept on talking about
threats to Elisabeth's reign, the threat was never made palpable.
We do see a papal assassin roaming the halls of the palace once
in a while, but he's promptly arrested and wracked. I still can't
quite figure out why (or how) Dudley betrayed Elizabeth.
As for the theme about Elisabeth and her
emerging independent woman-spirit, well, it amounts to nothing
more than that she gets sick and tired of having to be told that
she needs to produce an heir to secure her throne. Oh,yes, I
forgot: it's also probably a perverse reaction of hers to a
proposed betrothal to a noodle of French transvestite prince.
Kate Planchette at least may take the rug from
under "heroin chic" and stir a vogue for
"apparitional beauty". The only other observation I can
think of is that men in the movie, all with shaved heads, look
swarthy and gay.
