Peter McGinn

Jun 7, 2021

4.0

This miniseries started out with an odd moment for me (and only me, I expect). The camera panned early in the first scene to an actor I thought was Mark Rylance, a great actor who actually played Cromwell in another version of this historical period: Wolf Hall. I thought how neat it was to find him a role in this version. But it wasn’t him after all. That would have been an odd touch. But never mind. I think Jodie Turner-Smith does a credible job as Anne Boleyn, at least when she is speaking. What I mean is that there were a couple of times when the camera lingered when she wasn’t speaking, presumably to show her emotions or thought process change. But I couldn’t get a read on it at all. Maybe it was just me but those extended moments felt like misfires. I have never been offended or angry when a movie based on real people and events makes small changes here and there. I mean, if I wanted to watch a documentary, I would. But I have to admit it was totally jarring to me what Anne suggested when the king told her they could not have sex with her pregnant - which I believe was accurate for the time. Henry had a habit of securing mistresses for his wives’ laying in periods. But here Anne suggests there are other ways beside normal sex that they can use for satisfaction. Even this might have been believable if a woman who spent time in a licentious French court as she did offers to use oral sex to keep her man from wandering afield (though he might well have obsessed over how she knew about it). But to have the king kneel down before her to offer her pleasure that way - would a proud, spoiled king dream of doing it? It just seemed modern to me, like we weren’t in a historical drama anymore, but rather a fantasy re-imagining of history. It sort of lost me there. It is too bad, for I was enjoying the diverse cast, especially knowing they were tweaking the noses of the racists who bristle profusely and sputter at the mere suggestion that they are racists. After watching one movie recently where a white man played a Native American character (oh, not a savage Indian of course, but a proud, heroic one) and another movie where a white star painfully played a Chinese character, I remain convinced that the minute white people truly stop being offended by blacks playing traditional white roles, people of color would stop caring if whites play characters like Martin Luther King, the scenario that is the ace in the hole the white one-star reviewers always fall back on. But setting all that aside, the show just didn’t grab me. And isn’t that what this is all about?