Dear Jodie - E is for Elizabeth

 

Dear Jodie,

I watched Elizabeth  the other day for the first time since its 1998 release, and again was taken by the amazing Cate Blanchett!

Yes, the sets and costumes were spectacular but shined as the stars to the sun when compared with Cate Blanchett’s performance.

She began as a smiling, happy girl living in the fair countryside taken by the charms of Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes).

Over the course of the movie she grows in confidence and stature and daring, declaring to her all male cast of advisors, “I will have one mistress here! And no master!”

She clumsily, then skillfully avoids assassination attempts and plots from France, Spain, and, notoriously, the Catholic Church to overthrow her, and begins the process of molding an England that produced Shakespeare.

To get there though, she had to shake those who tried to make her into their image, several like the elderly Sir William Cecil (Richard Attenborough) with the best of intentions.

Her circumstances forged her into The Virgin Queen, but she, herself, was the blacksmith saying herself, “I have become a virgin.”

The stark change in her look showed the end result of the forging.

One of the most touching reactions in the movie was when Elizabeth effective retired Cecil, creating Lord Burleigh.  Richard Attenborough’s reaction went right to my heart.  She recognized that he meant well, but England had passed him by . . . carried by Queen Elizabeth.

I give this 8 out of 10.

Check out Jodie's review here!

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