Word: eccleston
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Tellingly, the most consistently exciting character in the film is not Elizabeth herself but her shadowy advisor Sir Francis Walsingham, played with relish and cold blood by the virtuosic Geoffrey Rush. Other politicos surrounding the Queen, like unrecognizable Christopher Eccleston as the traitorous Duke of Norfolk and Santa Claus-lookalike Richard Attenborough as earnest advisor Sir William Cecil, reveal their allegiances too broadly to become truly fearful or fascinating. By contrast, Rush's lurking performance leaves everything to the imagination: Walsingham whispers sweet Machiavellian nothings in the ear of the Queen between sessions slitting the throats of the boys...
Jude, a careful, finally powerful film adapted by Hossein Amini and directed by Michael Winterbottom, places its hero and heroine in the context of a society that rejects their mild bohemianism. Jude (Christopher Eccleston) studies for the sheer pleasure of the text; Sue (Kate Winslet) flaunts her agnosticism and struts in bars, turning a cigarette into a smokestack (a gesture used so well in Francois Truffaut's Jules and Jim, the classic film about the perils of loving a liberated woman). They are also the modern homeless: their evictions from "decent" homes set up an atrocity that still shocks...
...young stars give the film its grim rapture. Eccleston's Jude is not crippled but strengthened by the burden of carrying a love for someone reluctant to accept it. When he's with Sue, his gaze speaks love so loudly she might have to cover her ears. Winslet is worthy of his and the camera's scrupulous adoration. Her teasing sneer of a smile makes her a very contemporary presence. So she's perfect for Sue, a modernist ahead of her time. Take Gwyneth Paltrow's elegance, mix in Drew Barrymore's naughty wiles, and you have a hint...
...three main characters are roommates who could be the three Musketeers, except that their motto is simply, "All for one." David (Christopher Eccleston), a bland accountant, Alex (Ewan McGregor), a cocky journalist, and Juliet (Kerry Fox), a frosty doctor, all live together in a flat in urban Scotland...
...each other with perverse sexual propositions. Early on, when Juliet sticks her shoe in Alex's mouth, prompting him to kiss her ankle, it becomes obvious that they are more than just housemates. The mechanics of their friendship seem believable, but it's harder to accept their lusty rapport. Eccleston and Fox lack chemistry; their sexual interactions are stiff and unnatural...