Jubilee

John Dee uses Ariel to transport Elizabeth I to present-day London. She emerges into the shattered Britain of the 1970s and begins to survey the decayed city. She witnesses the violent, anarchic mood of a society in flux.

Elizabeth is introduced to a squat full of aimless young women, including Amyl Nitrate, Bod, Chaos, Crabs and Mad, with Sphinx and Angel the incestuous brothers nearby. Amyl delivers a provocative history lesson that valorises violent behavior and scandalous figures. The scene establishes the rebellious, anarchic tone of the group.

Bod, a sex-hating anarchist, strangles Queen Elizabeth II in a street robbery and steals her crown. The act epitomizes the group's contempt for established authority and the crown’s symbolic power. The crime sets in motion the film’s brutal power dynamics.

The group moves to a cafe where Crabs meets a young musician named Kid. Mad tears up postcards while Bod attacks a waitress with tomato sauce. Bod also contacts impresario Borgia Ginz to start building opportunities.

At a meeting with Ginz, Amyl Nitrate performs a pastiche of Rule Britannia, shocking the impresario and signaling a fusion of performance and provocation. Ginz is shown expanding into property management, purchasing abandoned spaces to transform into venues.

Sphinx and Angel begin a relationship with Viv, a young former artist, and take her to meet Max, an ex-soldier. The interactions broaden the crew’s circle and deepen the film's themes of desire and power.

Crabs arranges for Kid to see Ginz, and Kid’s band is auditioned and signed under the name Scum. Sphinx and Angel press Kid to resist, but he laughs off their warnings.

Ginz expands his empire by purchasing Westminster Cathedral and Buckingham Palace, converting them into musical venues. The city’s sacred and royal spaces become commercial stages for a new subculture.

Mad, Bod and Crabs asphyxiate Happy Days, one of Crabs’s lovers, with red plastic sheeting. They then break into the flat of Lounge Lizard, an androgynous rock star, where Bod throttles him to death.

A disco session in Westminster Cathedral triggers a fight between Kid and a policeman. Tensions escalate as the space becomes a stage for violence rather than worship.

After Kid’s TV debut, Viv and the three males visit Max’s bingo hall, where violent police activity leads to the deaths of Sphinx, Angel, and Kid. The violence marks a turning point for the group and their relationship to authority.

The gang exacts revenge on the two policemen: one is castrated to death by Mad and Amyl, and the other is killed by Bod with a petrol bomb at his doorstep after an affair with Crabs. The act enforces a brutal retribution arc.

Ginz takes the four women to Dorset, presenting it as the only safe place to live, and signs a recording contract with the gang. The retreat signals a pivot toward professionalized, commodified rebellion.

Dee, Ariel, and Elizabeth interpret the signs of anarchic modernity around them, then undertake a pastoral return to the sixteenth century at the film’s end. The trio seeks a nostalgic escape from the present through historical illusion.