i feel like the story of anne boleyn is an excellent topic for a 2 hour movie. however, adapting that story from this book by phillipa gregory does not make a great two hour movie. there’s just so much that gets glossed over and left out and the pacing in the end result made the characters into very different people. to me, it felt like taking an episode of sex and the city, originally aired on hbo, and adapting it for tbs. so much gets edited out for both time and content, that not only does the end result bear little resemblance to the original, but it doesnt make much sense either.

I’ve not read the book before seeing the movie, so I cannot compare to that. I thought the movie in itself was okay. Of course the story does not quite reflect historical truth, but it’s not a disadvantage. It generally gives a nice insight into life at court. I’ve especially enjoyed that you can see the story from the point of view of many characters. Politics don’t play into it so much, mainly the movie focuses on the stories of two women, Mary and Anne. I’ve been surprised that you can sympathize with all of them. While in the beginning you take sides for Mary, with time you can also see Anne’s point of view. Besides it’s even fun hating Anne in the beginning and see all the intrigue. All in all a nice movie, but I probably won’t watch it again, at least not in the theatre.

There seems to have been too much in the book to make the movie a good reflection of it. The characters in the movie weren’t very full, and it was hard to actually get to know them. There were large sections of the book skipped, which is understandable, but it took away from the story.

I’m sure that if I hadn’t read the book first, I would have enjoyed the movie more…