I disagree. I think this was a refreshing take on the costume drama. I really enjoyed the to-the-camera confessions, making it very intimate, I thought. Loved Jodhi May and Natascha MacElhone and Jared Harris, especially.
I'm also a fan of the book, but it's true, the film takes great liberties w/ the book. But the book's author is a fan of the film, and quite pleased w/ the ultimate result. So....
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pulp150
20 years ago
I have mixed feelings about this film.
I appreciated the use of color, it represents the harshness of the time. It's a nice change to see a period piece that's not glamorous. I can imagine it's tempting to make the good looking cast even better looking.
The confessions in the camera I didn't understand. I do understand it was an attempt to make it more intimate. But I don't think it workout that well here. I consider it to modern. It works in comedy like 'the private life of Samuel Pepys'. There it was brilliant. Maybe they could've used a confession setting for these scene's instead of putting them into a room speaking to the camera. And used more close-ups instead of medium shots. That would make it more intimate and dramatic.
The scip to modern time at the end didn't annoy me.
The acting is superb! I enjoyed to see Jodhi May paying a wicked woman for a change. She portrayed Anne Boleyn very good Her sick and cruel pleasure to torture her family by for example trying to marry of her sister to a fat ugly man.
Her frightening ambition and abuse of power is portrayed brilliantly.
The actor who played Henry and the actress who played Mary were also brilliant.
The rest of the cast were very complementary to the leading ladies and man. Very good.
This is not a story about one person. It's about relations between people. This movie explains why Mary survived.
This is really a film worth wile seeing. But don't expect to see a conventional historical epic.
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A-M
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English is not my first language so please excuse my spelling and grammar errors
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amanda-558
15 years ago
'sydneypatrick - I disagree. I think this was a refreshing take on the costume drama. I really enjoyed the to-the-camera confessions, making it very intimate, I thought. Loved Jodhi May and Natascha MacElhone and Jared Harris, especially.'
I agree with you. I loved this version; so much better than the 2008 film. But then I hadn’t read the novel then. The acting was brilliant and it was nice to see a less sumptuous costume drama IMO. I like the confession to the camera as it made me root for the characters even more; also I felt that I got more of a sense of who they were.
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