Dir. Shekhar Kapur , UK /France, 2007, 115 mins
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Abbie Cornish, Samantha Morton Review by Carol Allen
The Golden Age has set itself a big problem in terms of following on from the high standard of the first Elizabeth. What writer Michael Hirst and director Kapur did then was to tell their story as a fast paced spy thriller, albeit with a romantic sub plot, which gave it a strong focus. In Golden Age the focus is more diffuse and even with the addition of fellow writer William Nicholson (Shadowlands, etc), the writing not nearly as sharp.
Whereas Elizabeth dealt with her life before becoming queen, this film is about the heyday of her reign, the difficult relationship between England and Spain which culminated in war and Elizabeth 's personal conflict over what to do about her cousin Mary Queen of Scots (Morton), whom the Catholic faction would have as queen. Material one would have thought for a strong political drama. Blanchett is magnificent as the now middle-aged Elizabeth but the telling of the story is more than somewhat confused with loose ends hanging about all over the place and the politics of the time while interesting are frequently ill defined. There appears, for example, to be some sort of Spanish sponsored Catholic plot against the Crown going on, led by Jesuit priest Robert Reston (Rhys Ifans) but exactly what he is up to is never clear, while Geoffrey Rush reprising his role as the Elizabethan equivalent of Head of Intelligence doesn't get much of a look in this time. There is an interesting scene towards the beginning of the film, where Elizabeth against the advice of her councillors refuses to persecute her Catholic subjects, whose religion makes them all potential rebels, which has echoes of the current terrorist paranoia in the Western world, but this analogy is disappointingly not pursued.
The emotional centre of film is a three way relationship between Elizabeth, her young ward Bess (Cornish) to whom the queen acts as a kind of surrogate mother and the adventurer Walter Raleigh (Owen) to whom they are both attracted. While Cornish is very believable, Owen seems wooden and miscast as Raleigh . His dialogue particularly in his scenes with Elizabeth often sounds as though it comes from a Barbara Cartland novel and the things for which he is mostly remembered – cloak flourishing, potatoes and tobacco – are disposed of briskly and perfunctorily in his very first scene. The bow-legged King Philip of Spain (Jordi Mollà) and his spooky young daughter Isabelle (Aimee King) are effective but seem to come from a different film, something in the style of Amenábar or del Toro. Morton is appropriately unlikeable as the manipulatiive and complaining Mary Queen of Scots, though her strong Scottish accent is somewhat surprising, as Mary was largely raised by her French mother in France .
It is a very good looking film with lush settings and costumes and the climactic sea battle between the English navy and the Spanish Armada is predictably im press ive but with one glaring omission. Though Raleigh is prominent in the battle, where was Francis Drake when England needed him? He appears to be absent from the whole proceedings.
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