Other Doctor Lives: Elizabeth (1998, R)

I’ve seen this film before, but I’m revisiting it now for my Christopher Eccleston agenda. I’m not sure what it is—I’ve enjoyed my Other Doctor Lives forays into all the Doctors, including my pregame watches for Peter Capaldi and beyond—but for some reason, I get an extra little bit of joy seeing Eccleston be awesome in other projects.

After the death of King Henry VIII (and his son Edward VI,) his daughter Mary I becomes queen. As Mary’s health begins to fail, the Catholic queen’s abiding fear is that her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth will succeed her. When that’s exactly what happens, Catholic allies at court conspire against Elizabeth, dogging the young new queen’s every move. In order to make her mark on the throne, Elizabeth has to let all other desires be subsumed by it.

I am not up on my English monarchs, a fact I’ve admitted on multiple occasions, so I didn’t come to this film armed with the knowledge of how accurate it is. After I saw it for the first time, I looked up enough to confirm “not very.” So, with the understanding that it captures the overall feel and atmosphere of that era in England, and that it’s correct in the broad beats of Elizabeth’s early reign but takes a lot of license with the details, I enjoyed it as a movie if not as a history lesson.

When Elizabeth arrives at court, there are a few factors working against her. Again, she’s Protestant, which a lot of people virulently hate. Under Mary’s rule, Protestants were burned at the stake, and now the bishops are meant to accept a Protestant queen? She’s a woman, which is of course a problem for a lot of the men at court, and she’s unmarried, which makes it even worse in their eyes. Those who aren’t actively plotting to kill her are eager to marry her off as soon as possible—to gain a political alliance, to have a husband provide a tempering influence on Elizabeth, and to get her to pop out heirs and shore up the line of succession. And she doesn’t respect The Way Things Are Done. Aside from not placidly going along with her advisors’ marriage plans, she seeks the opinions of men who aren’t on her council, and she spends a great deal of time at court with her friend and lover, Robert Dudley. (Side note: reminder that I’m talking specifically about the film and not history, where Dudley’s precise relationship with Elizabeth isn’t known.)

Cate Blanchett earned her first Oscar nomination for this film, and it’s easy to see why. Elizabeth is thrown into an impossible situation that she’s ill-equipped for, and she handles it the best she can—sometimes hanging on for dear life, sometimes raging against the positions others put her in, sometimes clawing back her agency from everyone around her. She’s often unsure of her choices but plows ahead anyway, and it’s great to see the moments where she takes command and puts these tired men in their place. Additionally, there’s a real warmth and openness to Elizabeth for large parts of the film. Over the years, I feel like kind of an icy persona has built up around Blanchett and the characters she plays, and it’s good to see her playing something very different to that.

Joseph Fiennes plays Robert Dudley. This is actually one of two Elizabethan period pieces from 1998 in which he played the romantic lead, the other being Shakespeare in Love. While I prefer Fiennes in that film, he gets the job done well. The film also features appearances from James Frain, Kelly Macdonald, Emily Mortimer (seeing Bright Young Things alum in anything always makes me happy,) and Daniel Craig. Everyone is looking so young and lovely. Less happily, we also get Geoffrey Rush as Sir Francis Walsingham, one of Elizabeth’s few allies at court, and a ruthless one at that.

As for Eccleston, he has a prominent role here as the Duke of Norfolk, a prominent member of court and one of the chief forces opposing Elizabeth. He’s a shrewd character, openly showing allegiance in public while plotting in secret. The duke wants to keep Elizabeth under control until he’s able to get rid of her, and he’s not especially picky about how he might manage to do that.

Eccleston does a great job. The duke is intense and commanding, but in an understated way. He’s a very controlled man, and you can believe that Elizabeth might mistrust him but feel aggrieved that she has no concrete evidence as to why she does. He stays above reproach, keeping his voice level while his resentment seethes behind his eyes.

Accent Watch

RP. Again, very controlled, very “proper.”

Recommend?

In General – I would, provided you’re looking for entertainment and not a history lesson. This is a well-made film in which all elements work together to put forth the story it wants to tell.

Christopher Eccleston – Yes. Eccleston is excellent as the duke. It’s interesting to see how many darker characters have popped up for him on Other Doctor Lives. Nine was certainly edgier than most Doctors, but he’s also a character who radiates compassion and love. Seeing some of his past roles, it makes me all the more grateful that RTD looked at him and realized he could be an amazing Doctor.

Warnings

Violence (including religious executions,) sexual content, language (including sexist slurs,) drinking, and strong thematic elements.

Other Doctor Lives: 28 Days Later… (2002, R)

I’m gonna be honest: this is the first time I’ve ever seen this movie. That seems weird, ‘cause 1) I remember it was a big deal when it came out and 2) I’m a fan of Danny Boyle. But if you’ve been around this blog for a while, you might know that zombies are A Problem. It’s why I only managed to watch World War Z (because Peter Capaldi was in it) through heavy multitasking and inattention to the screen for long chunks of the movie. It’s why I had to really talk myself into myself into seeing In the Flesh and Warm Bodies, despite all the great things I’d heard about them. It’s why I still haven’t watched The Last of Us, even though my pop culture circles were raving about it for months when it first came out (and I love Pedro Pascal’s work.) But this is Other Doctor Lives, and for Christopher Eccleston, I was prepared to power through.

When Jim wakes up from a 28-day coma following a traffic accident, he wakes to a London that’s entirely different from the one he’d previously known. The streets are eerily empty, walls are plastered with pictures of missing persons, and the headlines of stray newspapers littering the streets shout about evacuation. While Jim was in his coma, a “rage virus” was accidentally unleashed on the human population. Anyone infected becomes unthinking and violent within seconds, driven wild with a desire to bite other humans, passing on the virus through their blood. Jim manages to connect with a few determined survivors, and they search for anywhere they can be safe.

The use of the “28 days later” is probably what sets this film apart the most from other zombie stories. While many start either at the inception of the apocalypse or already in the thick of it, possibly with flashbacks to happier days, Jim wakes to an apocalypse in progress, but he never saw it begin. He was in an accident, he lost consciousness, and when he opened his eyes, the world was different. It’s not clear how exactly he survived for nearly a month in that situation—when he comes to, the hospital has been overturned and deserted—but either way, he’s dropped into the middle of things while lagging behind everyone else. He lacks knowledge of what happened, and furthermore, he lacks ruthlessness. When he first meets Selena, he’s appalled by her callous attitude towards killing the infected, to killing someone she’s been rolling with on the undetermined possibility that he might have been infected. But Jim hasn’t spent the last month watching people he knew and loved turn into monsters. He hasn’t had to kill to survive, scavenging non-perishable food from ransacked shops and living constantly on edge and on guard. He’s in for a brutal, whirlwind education, but it also gives him a different perspective than most of the people he encounters.

As with a lot of zombie stories, the film uses the apocalyptic backdrop, not just to provide endless waves of monsters for our heroes to fight, but also to comment on humanity. We see the tiny moments in which survivors are able to remember they’re living for more than just violence, the brief reprieves from the grimness and fear that allow them to enjoy extremely simple pleasures. And we see how survivors have hardened, how some of the most reprehensible things our band of survivors encounter doesn’t come from the infected. That’s hardly a new idea—“The greatest monster is man,” and all that—but the film explores it effectively.

I remember that the first time I ever saw Cillian Murphy was in the trailers for this film, and even though I didn’t actually see him in a movie until Batman Begins, the image of his striking face had stayed with me. He does a nice job as Jim, often overwhelmed and panicked but fighting to hold onto as much humanity as he can, for as long as he can. Naomie Harris plays Selena well—she’s a cynical badass, but we glimpse at some of the horrors that made her that way. The film also features Brendan Gleeson as Frank, a thoroughly unbadass survivor who’s tried to hide rather than fight, who gives Jim and Selena shelter at a vital moment.

Christopher Eccleston doesn’t appear until the second half of the film, but he makes a big impact on the story. The survivors find their way to a makeshift military base run by Major Henry West, who’s doing what he can to keep his men alive and keep the infected at bay. He has a nihilistic view of the current state of England, remarking that what’s happening now is simply “people killing people,” not so different than what it’s always been. He appears as a brave, intelligent protector, but can our heroes trust him and his soldiers?

The film goes to some ugly places, and West is a part of that, so it can definitely get uncomfortable to watch. But Eccleston is just excellent here. West is calmly reassuring, thoroughly unsentimental, and quietly funny. It’s clear that his men regard him highly, and he projects an air that he can handle things. When he reveals to Jim that they’ve captured one of the infected and have been keeping it chained up in the yard, he gets very close to the infected man without flinching (while knowing precisely how close he can get and still maintain his control.) As soon as he comes onscreen, West keeps you guessing.

Accent Watch

RP, pretty good. I heard a few Northern vowels, but not many.

Recommend?

In General – If you’re into zombie movies, I think so. This is a fairly “grounded” take on the genre, and to my admittedly uninitiated eyes, it seems like a good one.

Christopher Eccleston – Yes. Eccleston draws your attention the whole time he’s onscreen. He’s so good here, somehow warm and chilling at the same time.

Warnings

Graphic violence, language, cruelty to animals in laboratory conditions, and strong thematic elements.

Other Doctor Lives: Flesh and Blood (2002)

*Premise spoilers.*

This is an interesting but flawed TV movie. I’d say it would’ve been progressive when it was made while still being very much a product of its time. Christopher Eccleston is effective in this complicated, sometimes uncomfortable role.

Joe Broughton was adopted, and now that he’s a father himself, he’s become more preoccupied with wondering about his biological parents and trying to find them. After some digging, he’s shocked to discover that his true parentage was deliberately concealed: he’s the son of two people with developmental disabilities, who conceived him while they were both living in an institution. Joe struggles to wrestle with this revelation, reckoning with where he came from and very tentatively trying to get to know his biological parents.

A few notes to start. This film involves a number of slurs against people with developmental disabilities, as well as terms that are simply outdated. There are some ugly attitudes, and Joe has a lot of ableism that he needs to examine in himself. Furthermore, it remains very much Joe’s story, and while it seems like the disabled characters were all cast authentically, they’re devices in his narrative. They’re there to challenge his assumptions, to present him with frustrations, and to provoke questions in him, all unwittingly. I fully respect anyone’s choice not to watch the film for these reasons.

There is some interest to be found here, although the movie feels thin at 76 minutes and its tone can veer toward melodramatic. I like Joe gradually learning to relate to his birth parents on their terms, not his, and recognizing that just because the daydreams he had of them didn’t pan out, they’re still people deserving of respect. (I’m aware that that’s an incredibly low bar to clear, but again, he has a lot of ableism to contend with.) Additionally, the film does a decent job of showing what life can be like for a developmentally disabled adult, with Joe’s birth parents, Harry and Janet, living under two very different circumstances.

Other than Eccleston, I’m not super familiar with the rest of the cast. Stephen Graham, who plays Joe’s friend Eddie, has cropped up in various things, including as Mr. Wormwood in the movie musical of Matilda. Like I said, the disabled characters here all appear to be cast with disabled actors, which I appreciate. Peter Kirby and Dorothy Cockin, both in their only screen credits, play Harry and Janet. Kirby gets more time onscreen than Cockin, and he does well with the role.

Christopher Eccleston plays Joe. Thinking back on it, there are a handful of films about people whose parents have developmental disabilities—I think the first I ever saw was I Am Sam. The biggest difference with Joe is that he wasn’t raised by Harry and/or Janet, and he grew up without having any information about them. It’s not until his daughter is born that he gets serious about trying to find them—“She might look like someone we’ve never met,” he muses, looking at the baby—and when he does, a lot of very unexpected information gets dumped in his lap.

He handles that badly, often flailing and often thinking primarily of himself and his own interests. Over time, as he gradually grapples with his ableism and gets to know his birth parents a little better (especially Harry,) he goes on an interesting journey. Again, it’s both complicated and uncomfortable. We see him start to feel protective of Harry and Janet, defending them against others and ready to challenge anyone who might treat them badly. But at the same time, his own ableism is far from dealt with, and he has a lot of shame, too: shame at how the medical establishment treated his birth parents, shame at the idea of Harry sleeping with Janet (“How did she ever agree to sex?” he laments when he first meets her,) and shame at being their biological child. His is a tough story, and it frequently isn’t pretty to watch.

Accent Watch

Northern.

Recommend?

In General – I hesitate to. As I said, this TV movie does do some interesting things, but for me, some of the language and attitudes on display are too ugly to recommend it.

Christopher Eccleston – Not a must. Eccleston rises well to the challenges of the film, and he’s generous in scenes with Kirby and Cockin, but he has enough strong performances in better films that you could do without this one.

Warnings

Language (including ableist slurs and some sexist jokes,) drinking/smoking, sexual references, and thematic elements.