“A nation is in peril. Bitterly divided at home, it vacillates between two warring dynasties. Threatened by dark forces abroad, it worries that a decisive moment is coming when one great empire will rise and another will fall. And a female leader is struggling to maintain her femininity while proving she can rule as well as any man.

“Watching Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I couldn’t help thinking of Hillary Clinton, quite possibly the next president of the United States, a woman who often seems to live behind her own plate of glass.

“I [also] wondered the same thing I always wonder when I watch candidates for the presidency putting themselves through the drudgery and the emotional starvation of a long, grueling campaign: is it really worth it?

“The film, and the Clintons, are reminders of all that gets bargained away in public life. At the end of Elizabeth the queen has defeated the Spanish Armada and governs over a golden age of prosperity on England’s shores. Blanchett appears as a living statue in white body paint. Behind her pane of glass, a queen is victorious, ferocious — and utterly alone.” — from Jonathan Darman‘s 10.24 Newsweek piece, “What Elizabeth teaches about Hillary Clinton’s challenge