Good Nasty Historical Fun

Rating: 7/10 (25 February 2019)

Maybe it's because I'm familiar with the history of the period, but I didn't find it as hard to follow the story as some of the mainstream critics. Churchill epitomized it thus: Godolphin managed the Parliament, Sarah managed the Queen, and Marlborough managed the war. That is, until they didn't because the bulk of the landowing class decided that England had been victorious enough that they didn't have to go on paying land tax. At that point, the Tories won the 1710 election, Sarah fell out of favor, and England abandoned its allies and negotiated peace with France. Abigail Masham, who took Sarah's place in Anne's affection, indeed had backdoor connections with Harley, the leader of the Tories.
But the war and the politics are just the McGuffin for this movie. The core story is the shifting emotional relationship among the three women, which I found quite involving and fairly well grounded in history as such movies go. (It's certainly far better grounded than the egregious Mary Queen of Scots.) Anne was gouty and not too bright, and she did lose 17 children. (Her husband, Prince George of Denmark, was written out of the story as a distraction from the central triangle.) Sarah was Anne's BFF from the time they were teens, and she was the dominant one in the relationship until Anne kicked her to the curb. Anne did write Sarah some pretty steamy letters, which Sarah included in her published memoirs after Anne's death. Sarah and her husband Marlborough did embezzle public funds. Abigail Masham was accused at the time, albeit by writers in Sarah's pay, of having a lesbian relationship with Anne. The aristocratic bad behavior in this variant on All About Eve was great fun, and the performances deserve all the critical praise they've gotten.