As previously mentioned, I have been itching to see this movie for several months. There was no possible way that I wasn't going to like it. Remember, though, I am not well versed with historical happenings, so while I knew how it was going to end, I did not know of all the things that were to happen in between. I am fairly certain I was the only one to be finding out for the first time because this was apparently the movie to see for the over 60 crowd.
The basic storyline is the King of England wants a son, but his wife, Catherine has had miscarriage after miscarriage and now can no longer bear any children. The king would never leave his wife, but still wants an heir so he is searching for a mistress to bed and give him one.
Anne and Mary are sisters (Anne being older) and are as different as night and day. Anne wants to marry a rich, powerful man; whereas Mary wants to wed for happiness and true love. Mary is soon married to a commoner so Anne is told that she needs to catch the king's eye and after she bears his son, she will be promised to marry a duke. Instead, though, the king fancies Mary and soon requests that she and her husband join her at Court to be servants for the Queen. This will make it easier for him to lay with Mary, of which he requests of her and she of course complies. No one would dare turn down the king's advances. Soon, Mary finds that she is pregnant, but there is a problem with the pregnancy, so she is put on strict bed rest and now the king will be seeking another's warm body to be in his bed.
Anne comes back into the picture - sent to "amuse" the king - and she puts on the tease hot and heavy and the king insists on being with her, but Anne is not as compliant as her sister, Mary, and turns away the king's advances unless he agrees to marry her. Once he does, only then will she sleep with him. She does not want to give birth to a bastard child, which is what it would be if the two of them were not married. King Henry had no intention of ever leaving his queen but he wants Anne and Anne has promised him a son, so the two of them work out a way to remove Catherine from the picture.
It's probably best I stop there, because otherwise I'm going to end up spelling out the entire story. And even though it's based on historical facts, I honestly don't know which things have been embellished for drama sake or if every single moment is true. Either way, it was an excellent movie and I would most definitely see it again...should it ever show at my theater.
The movie was well over 2 hours long, but I wasn't a clock watcher at all during it. It was intense and mesmerizing from beginning to end. All of the performances were good and the character developments were nice for the dummies in the audience (me) who didn't know squat about the king and the queen and the concubines and the concubine wannabe's, etc.
I was a little disappointed, though, that for all of the steamy scenes shown in the trailer, and all of the sex that everyone was having during the storyline that there was not a single nude body shown. Sorry, guys, but you'll have to check out Natalie and Scarlett in another film if you're wanting to see skin, cuz you won't see it in this one. And for the girls, Jim Sturgess (George - brother of Anne and Mary) and Eric Bana (King Henry) were quite the luscious distractions from all that female cleavage all over the place. And still, not even a well-toned bare butt shown. It was only a PG-13 movie, after all. Hopefully there will be an unrated version when it comes out on dvd. Because, really, there is no reason to remake it completely because of those missing scenes, but I feel it would have been a better movie had they been included. (I can picture you purists out there saying that just because there's a sex scene, doesn't mean that everything has to be shown...well, in this particular case, yeah, it does.) :] :]
Hey, that brings me to a question...during that time period, the dresses that the girls wore were so incredibly long and loose fitting (except for the boobs all being tied with corsets) with all those layers, how would the guys have ever known if the girls were really porkers underneath all that? Because you can't just go by the face and if the rest of the body is covered until you get them to the bedroom, how would they know? Or did fat people just not exist back then? Just curious.
Anyway, I highly recommend this movie whether you want to compare it with history, watch a lot of good acting, or just settle in for a well-told story. I truly believe this is a must-see for the big screen. Between the horses clopping across the ground and the dramatic face slapping scene (of which quite a few people in the audience clapped) as well as other intense moments, it will be better enjoyed in this setting. Plus, I predict this one will be out in theaters for a long run and if you're one to wait for it to come out on dvd before you see it, you might be waiting til December.
Tell me what you thought of it.
Vixy :]
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