Candlelit costume drama Becoming Elizabeth can't quite suck us in

As far as historical figures go, Elizabeth I has had pretty good coverage. In a dozen movies and several series, the Virgin Queen has been incarnated by Bette Davis, Glenda Jackson, Cate Blanchett (twice), and Helen Mirren, and cheekily portrayed by Quentin Crisp, Judi Dench, and—cheekiest of all—Miranda Richardson, whose Elizabeth was a fizzy, ginger maniac in Blackadder.

But no one has focused on Good Queen Bess when she was a teenager, the illegitimate daughter of a serial marrier, unsure which way her life would lead: to the throne or to the chopping block like her mum, the “Great Whore” Anne Boleyn. In the Starz series Becoming Elizabeth, 14-year-old Elizabeth (Alicia von Rittberg) must choose sides, and fast. Her older sister, Mary (Romola Garai), is a devout Catholic in a country torn by religious difference. Her 10-year-old brother, Edward (Oliver Zetterström), elevated to the throne, is an ardent Protestant and perhaps a tyrant-in-training.

Elizabeth moves to the estate of Henry VIII’s final wife, Catherine Parr (Jessica Raine), who’s keen to retain power alongside her lover, the Lord Thomas Seymour (Tom Cullen). They hope to use Elizabeth as a pawn in Edward’s court. Thomas, a man of great libido as well as ambition, begins grooming the young Elizabeth, for extra personal advantage. Our princess is first confused, then turned on by the oily Tudor fuckboi’s shameless flirtation. Dynastic struggle, sibling rivalry, and hormonal urges: Those are the basic ingredients showrunner Anya Reiss mixes up for her candlelit costume drama.

So why isn’t Becoming Elizabeth more gripping? Reiss has dramatized a teen-girl-older-man affair before—in her breakout 2010 play Spur Of The Moment (when she was only 18), and she’s scripted four seasons of the U.K. series Eastenders. To avoid the stilted dialogue of the typical period drama, the challenge is to thread the needle between the camp soapiness of The Tudors and the ascetic tension of Wolf Hall. So we get sweaty rutting in bed, f-bombs, the occasional spew of vomit, heavy petting between Thomas and underage Elizabeth, and dialogue that’s both gritty and lightly lyrical. However, on the strength of the four episodes watched for this review, the whole is thinly plotted, slowly paced, lacking a strong center or any sense of humor.

As played with spunk and dewy innocence by von Rittberg, the redheaded princess is appealing, but ultimately a blushing cipher. It’s asking a lot to invest in her 11-year journey to the throne (how many seasons will that be?) when Elizabeth seems so bland and guileless starting out. Speaking directly to the camera à la Frank Underwood or showing a dark, power-hungry side would be far more compelling than watching a bewildered teenager navigate an adult crush and her crazy siblings.

Other players in this perilous world include Lord Thomas’ glum older brother, the Duke of Somerset (John Heffernan), who appoints himself the boy king’s guardian and voice on the Privy Council. When Edward starts to unleash his inner Joffrey (“I am fucking king!” he screams), you wonder who protects the Lord Protector. Alexander Macqueen adds some spice as fussy cardinal Stephen Gardiner, freed from the Tower of London to placate England’s Catholic faction—notably, Mary.

Although driven too much by dialogue (curse of Eastenders?) muttered in gloomy stone hallways, Becoming Elizabeth hits now and then with a memorable line. Reiss aims for a blend of stilted period and vulgar bluntness, which is fitfully arresting. “Beauty really is wasted on the young,” Parr muses as she watches Elizabeth dress. “You don’t use, believe it, and then just as you start to, it disappears. But it leaves the vanity behind. For the sake of irony.” Nuzzling Elizabeth’s neck, the besotted Thomas murmurs, “You may well ruin my life, Elizabeth. And I’ll fucking let you if you’d like to.”

If Reiss pushed both vulgarity and lyricism to the limit—not to mention sexual content beyond soft-core montage—something might anchor our attention, a baroque, unforgettable patois like the one David Milch pioneered for Deadwood. Instead, the occasional writerly flourish combined with actors striving for mumble-and-slouch naturalism, lands us in a muddle as shadowy and amorphous as most of the under-lit scenes. Justin Chadwick directs the first three episodes with the standard single-shaky-cam approach; after a while the endless moments in castle rooms (each episode could lose 10 to 15 minutes) grow claustrophobic. Exterior scenes, as when Elizabeth shoots and kills a stag, or when a lake is set on fire for her 15th birthday, give some relief from the clammy court intrigue.

Middle children are marked by ambivalence: they’re peacemakers yet competitive; they’re conformists who are also independent; they think they’ve been overlooked and yet leave home early. Elizabeth was a model middle child, and perhaps it was the secret of her success. She ruled England a relatively peaceful 44 years. She outfaced the Spanish Armada. Literature (Shakespeare, Spenser, et al.) flowered under her. She never married or bore children, despite tremendous pressure to do so. Above all, Queen Elizabeth I was a survivor. The question is whether viewers can survive a season or two of Becoming Elizabeth to get to the meaty part of her career.