Why do film makers have to change the facts?

Rating: 8/10 (16 February 2003)

"From Hell" is a wonderfully evocative movie and, as the identity of the Ripper will never be known, the makers are at liberty to speculate. But why do they have to alter the facts and add pointless embellishments when the real facts of the case are so dramatic?
Grape stalks were not found by the bodies of any of the victims. The women killed by the Ripper did not need the incentive of a few grapes - they were so desperately poor that they had to earn a few pence for a bed in a cheap lodging house.
What dramatic point is served by making Inspector Abberline an opium addict, who dies young from his addiction? The real Abberline lived to 86! And, while Johnny Depp does a reasonable cockney accent (for an American), Abberline was born and brought up in Dorset and would have had a very distinctive accent, far removed from cockney.