Pretty lady.

Queen Elizabeth I herself was an amazing woman. Blanchett plays her well. Blanchett offers us a tantalizing glimpse of the young Elizabeth and then retracts it, allowing the personality to withdraw inside the body. Just as Elizabeth Tudor utterly subverted her private desires to the happiness of her people, becoming in the end a vessel for wants and desires of her Kingdom, Blanchett removes individuality from her character, leaving the parched-white virginal outer shell that we see at the end of the film.

It's difficult for us to imagine such a ruler. She elevated becoming the will of the people to the highest form it has ever reached. We've never known anything like it.