A bit of a let down

Rating: 5/10 (4 August 2008)

I was really looking forward to seeing this film as I'm very interested in the Tudor period. I was disappointed though to see that a lot of the dialogue had been lifted practically word for word from the adaption of Henry the 8th played by Ray Winstone and Helena Bonham Carter as Anne. Especially the scene where Catherine of Aragon meets Anne and Mary in the corridor before going into court and the court scene which tries Anne later on in the film. The two girls who play Anne and Mary in this are very good in their roles and manage to portray a convincing sister relationship. Eric Bana as Henry doesn't do it justice though, he just seems to walk around looking menacing. I never got a sense of just how long Anne and Henry had been together. In the film it looks like they've been together hardly two minutes when in reality they were together for 7 years before they got married. I realise that it's a lot to fit into just under 2 hours but the film Anne of the Thousand Days managed it very well. As with loads of these films, the film didn't do the book justice. The book focused more on Mary as the centre of the story while this was just another tale of Anne Boleyn with Mary on the sidelines. A story none of us needs to be told again. I was interested to see what they'd do with Mary as the main character but I felt like she was too much watered down. Even at her peak of Henry's affection, you never feel that shes just more than a wham bam thank you ma'am, instead of the real threat she was to Anne. The mother of Anne and Mary was turned into a caring woman who didn't like to see her daughters as pawns, but it didn't give the sense of Mary not being in control of her life. Mary's mother was just as ambitious as the rest of the family. Also there was absolutely no mention of Mary's husband after Henry got rid of her, or her later marriage. It was a good effort but it was a swing and a miss for me.