| Studios: | Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group |
| Release: | February 29, 2008 |
| Genre: | Drama and Adaptation |
| MPAA Rating: | PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content and some violent images. |
My Yahoo! Movies Rating: | Overall Grade: | B- |
| Story: | C+ |
| Acting | B |
| Direction: | B |
| Visuals: | B- |
The acting here, and the direction, was good, not great, but good. The costumes were nice, but admittedly the colors in the movie as a whole are a bit drab.
The story is compelling enough to raise one's interest in English history, and I am saying this as an Asian whose history education did not dwell too much in the personal lives of Western kings.
The story was interesting enough that upon leaving the theater, my friend and I begun discussing and trying to remember whatever we learned of Henry VIII and his wives, and we even had a good chuckle overhearing a woman braggingly relate her knowledge of British royalty to her 2 companions, one of whom we assume is her girlfriend. She was saying stuff about the current Prince Charles and the Queen Dowager. Why she jumped to that story puzzled us a bit until we realized she associated the Elizabeth at the end of the movie to the current Queen Elizabeth.
At that point, we figured that whether it's a straight guy or a lesbian butch, the "masculine" one has the funny habit of trying to impress the girlfriend with knowledge, even if it seriously flawed.
Which brings us to the story, which is indeed flawed. Once you turn to the history books, you will be disappointed to learn that this movie, and the novel it was based on, took too much artistic license with history.
The movie presented Mary as the younger Boleyn. Although some historians think so too, many people, including the Boleyn relatives, believed that Mary was older than Anne. The movie tells us that Anne was the only one who was sent to the French court. Actually, Mary herself spent 4-5 years in the same court prior to being Henry's mistress. It was even rumored that at one point, Mary was mistress to King Francis I of France. The real Anne Boleyn was executed privately, the movie showed a public execution.
The movie gets a nod for showing that the importance of Henry producing a male heir was one of the reasons he wanted to annul the marriage with Catherine. It was correct in depicting a healthier Henry, since the king started to become fat only after an accident in 1536.
The movie did impress on me two things: (1) Anne Boleyn could have simply been a mistress if she did not insist on being married before having sex with the king; (2) Henry VIII only had one LEGITIMATE son, Edward - but he had illegitimate sons as well.
The son shown here would be Henry Carey - born to Mary Boleyn-Carey while she was still married to William Carey and right after her relationship to Henry VIII ended. Historians are divided on whether he and his sister Catherine truly are the king's children.
Henry VIII recognized only one illegitimate son. He is Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, born to Elizabeth Blount (interesting to note that Fitzroy married Anne Boleyn's cousin; also interesting is the fact that he died in 1536 of what seems to be tuberculosis - in that same year, Catherine of Aragon died and Anne Boleyn was beheaded).
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