MOVIE REVIEW : THE PASSION AND THE ROMANCE OF ‘LADY JANE’

“Lady Jane” (at the Regent, Westwood, and the South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa) brings back the big historical romance with verve and passion. It’s not only poignant but also fun and unabashedly entertaining in the way that “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” still is. And it does have it all: authentic, sumptuous 16th-Century settings awash with warm Tudor brick, a splendid cast adorned with jewel-encrusted costumes, palace intrigue and, best of all, a pair of star-crossed young lovers who are irresistible.

They are the 15-year-old Lady Jane Grey (newcomer Helena Bonham Carter) and young Lord Guilford Dudley (Cary Elwes, the blond youth in “Another Country”). Lady Jane marries Lord Guilford only at the request of her adored, dying teen-age king, Edward VI (Warren Saire). Jane is a prim, outspoken anti-Papist who reads Plato in the original; Guilford has already started to drown in drink his cynical despair of his greedy, ruthless elders.

But once settled in an old priory, the couple who’ve married against their wills start falling in love, much to their surprise, and are transformed. As Guilford remarks, they’re the opposite sides of the same coin. He’s all emotion, she’s all thought--but together they come to realize how cruel and unjust is the society in which they live. They start dreaming of fleeing the country when, to their shock, Edward names Jane, his cousin, to succeed him on the throne, thus protecting Henry VIII’s “new religion”--and the fortunes that their parents and other aristocrats have wrested from confiscated church holdings. At last they understand their part in their parents’ grand design, but in their naivete they think that once on the throne they can institute radical reforms.

Jane and Guilford may remind you of a pair of flower children taking on the Establishment, but a little nostalgia for youthful idealism is not unwelcome. They’re able to carry on like a socially conscious Romeo and Juliet because their story has such a sturdily constructed context.

Writer David Edgar, working from a story by Chris Bryant, has been able to see their elders in the round. Guilford’s father, the Duke of Northumberland (John Wood), and Jane’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk (Sara Kestelman, Patrick Stewart), are harsh people living in a harsh, perilous time, nakedly ambitious and selfish, but not wholly unloving--and not without some larger concern for what they consider the good of England.

“Lady Jane” reveals an acute awareness of the relationship between religion and politics, expressing an ironic realization that political expediency is not always contradictory to fundamental and noble religious reform.

Director Trevor Nunn, head of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a Tony Award-winner for his direction of “Nicholas Nickleby” and “Cats,” displays an impressive command of a complex undertaking in only his second film. (The first was his fine 1975 “Hedda Gabler,” which brought Glenda Jackson an Oscar nomination.)

With Edgar’s script, Nunn has been able to give more substance than is usual for historical romance, even if Jane and Guilford at times sound more like mid-20th Century Valley kids than mid-16th Century aristocrats, uttering such phrases as “I couldn’t care less about being king of England.” Nonetheless, the story’s swoony, escapist appeal remains. Nunn gets those crackling spot-on performances that British actors deliver with such finesse in period pomp. At the same time “Lady Jane” is so stirring that it can sustain Stephen Oliver’s shamelessly emotional score with its oft-repeated romantic theme. “Lady Jane” has a sense of immediacy but also old-fashioned, heart-tugging appeal, cinematographer Douglas Slocombe’s moody lighting, Allan Cameron’s production design and Sue Blane and David Perry’s costumes contribute crucially to the film’s richness.

Jane Lapotaire is especially affecting as the middle-aged, devoutly Catholic Princess Mary, pining away for Philip II of Spain, whom she knows only from a possibly flattering Titian portrait. But “Lady Jane” is foremost the story of its young lovers, played with such intelligence and grace by the dashing Elwes and the demure Carter, who is so much like Olivia De Havilland when she was playing similar roles at the beginning of her career. The teen-age queen may have been the original nine-day wonder, but “Lady Jane” (rated PG-13 for some discreet nudity) looks to be around lots longer.

‘LADY JANE’ A Paramount presentation. Producer Peter Snell. Director Trevor Nunn. Screenlay David Edgar; from a story by Chris Bryant. Camera Douglas Slocombe. Music Stephen Oliver. Production designer Allan Cameron. Costumes Sue Blane, David Perry. Assoc. producer Ted Lloyd. Film editor Anne V. Coates. With Helena Bonham Carter, Cary Elwes, John Wood, Michael Hordern, Jill Bennett, Jane Lapotaire, Sara Kestelman, Patrick Stewart, Warren Saire, Joss Acklan, Ian Hogg.

Running time: 2 hours, 22 minutes.

MPAA rating: PG-13 (parents are strongly cautioned; some material may be inappropriate for children under 13).