The worst attempt to put a nearly 700 page book into a movie...

...I've ever seen.

I know it all had to be condensed to fit into a movie, but there was also quite a bit of characterization lost. You end up not caring about any of the characters because none of them change or grow. Some of my biggest disappointments:

-The relationship of Mary Boleyn and Queen Katherine. Mary wants the attention of the king and is glad of his love, but she also wants to serve his wife faithfully and doesn't like betraying her. Mary is split between these two desires and it hurts her. You're forced to sympathize with a character that isn't perfect and a little bit selfish. In a word: human. In the movie, she dislikes the queen and goes after the king just because her family told her too. There is no reason to judge Mary or her actions because she isn't responsible for any of it. This makes her pretty damn boring.

-The relationship between Mary Boleyn and King Henry. In the beginning of the book, Mary loves the king. When she has her own children and realizes how childish the king acts, it turns her off him and she decides there are more important things than being at court and pleasing her betters. In the movie, we don't see why she prefers her home in the country to court, she just says she does. Nothing about the summers being the only time and place she can be herself. More reasons to find Mary boring and static.

-The rivalry of Anne Boleyn and Queen Katherine. In the book this lasted for years and it shows how relentless Anne Boleyn was and how badly she wanted to be queen. She considered herself to be at war and didn't feel like she had succeeded until Katherine was dead. In the movie it seemed like Katherine was gone within 10 minutes and it took Anne and her family no work at all to get her into the throne.

One last complaint: Not explaining what happened to Mary's first husband is just pure laziness. Not even a "I'm sorry to hear about the loss if your husband, Mary."



We can't go back, we must always go forward.