Shekhar Kapur

Cate Blanchett’s queen is alert and vulnerable beneath the ceremony in Elizabeth (1998), and Shekhar Kapur has the sense to let that show. He directs the court as a dangerous place to work, full of desire and conspiracy, with little patience for the reassuring manners of costume drama. We felt anxious for her because Blanchett makes the struggle to hold power feel personal. This is an absorbing thriller, and a good place to understand what Kapur can do when his actors have room.

There is more to his work than period grandeur: he began directing with the family drama Masoom (1983) and went on to the science-fiction film Mr. India (1987). The decisive turn was Bandit Queen (1994), the Phoolan Devi biopic that brought international attention. Elizabeth established him in English-language cinema; The Four Feathers (2002) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) followed. What’s Love Got to Do with It? (2022), a cross-cultural romantic comedy, marked a return to feature directing after a long gap.

Jill Bilcock’s editing is crucial to the thriller pace in Elizabeth, keeping the intrigue moving and carrying us past some broad characterisation. That pace suits Kapur’s appetite for incident, and keeps the film from getting bogged down in ceremony. David Hirschfelder’s music is less judicious: it adds grandeur to images that are often emphatic enough already. The performances need space, and the extra insistence can be tiring.

The historical liberties need a separate caution. Kapur favours the emotional lives of historical figures over strict factual detail, and Elizabeth asks us to accept a good deal of rearrangement. We are willing to go along with that here; the danger and uncertainty keep the drama convincing, even when the history has been pushed into shape around its leading performance. Watch it for Blanchett, but do not use it to revise for an exam.