I majored in Tudor England and Stewart England. The film had hits and misses. So little is known about Mary that I thought that Phillipa's book was great. It brought a old story to a new light. However I felt that the movie had some big misses. Mary had 2 children with Henry it is assumed, and widely accepted. I felt that the story line with Henry turning into a dark shadow of his former self was great. The characters seemed to want to be more passionate with eachother, anger and love, and it was a bit of a miss. Mary and Staford, Anne and Harry Percy was very much about love. Not enough time was shown that both of the sisters did find the love that they were looking for, with consequences. Anne was shipped back to her home and Mary was banished from her family for marrying Staford. Anne was shown kissing her baby once in the film, but she was a good mother. For her time. She did not leave the country as it has been assumed that Henry offered her and Elizabeth. She believed that Elizabeth was the true heir of the throne and accepted the death penalty.
Eric Bana did a great job with Henry. He was a man that was told what to do around the time of meeting the Boleyn girls and then turned into a type of dictator by the time Anne is killed off.
Natalie was great when she starts to see herself falling from the graces of the King. She did not sleep during the last 2 years of her marriage. She was always in a state of high energy. She was falling apart, and she knew that she was the one that started the sprial that she was stuck in.
There is such a romantic notion about this time period, which in truth was not a great time. Well unless you where a man. Women were considered to be property, to be bought and sold. That is all that marriage was to men. They were seen as children that had to be guided. It was also very dirty. There are many stories of lice and other gross things. Some people never even had a bath in their entire life because they belived that water is where illness came from. It is one way, but man it would have smelled gross.