Lady Jane
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Movie Reviews of Lady Jane
Movie Review: Lady Jane
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie was very well done. The attention to detail, costumes, and music makes it a "must-see" for people who enjoy films with historical content.Movie Review: Great choice!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this movie - one of my all time favorites! Helena Bonham Carter is great in it! Great story, good acting ... great message!Movie Review: Very good romance
Summary: 5 Stars
One of my all time favorite romances. I like the relgious history as well. Will make you cry!Movie Review: great product.
Summary: 5 Stars
I got the DVD in a timely manner and the quality is great. Great service.Movie Review: Not an accurate history lesson, but well-made and well-acted
Summary: 4 Stars
History, so it seems, does not make good stuff for movies, so moviemakers tend to add bits of their own invention to make it all palatable to the moviegoing audience. In the case of poor little Jane Grey, one might just wish that her desperate and short life would at least have offered the comfort of such a passionate marriage as she gets here - which, alas, it didn't. Played out as a pawn in an elaborate succession ploy cooked up by her father-in-law, Jane was forced to marry a dispicable man, became queen for 9 days, and then, thanks to an inconceivably stupid eleventh hour rebellion by her father, went to the block with a calm dignity belying her mere 16 years. This movie has the gist of it, and makes for over two hours of good, solid entertainment. As costume drama goes, it is caught somewhere halfway between Errol Flynn and the BBC Virgin Queen. Sets and costumes are sumptuous if not quite historically correct (dresses, for instance, did not have all-round bodices, but were assembled from lots of bits and pieces pinned to the undergarments). Clearly, costumes were chosen for their dramatic effect, and as such work very well. Splendid Queen Mary in her red dress looks almost like Disney's witch Malificent, and the all white winter hunting party is very stylish indeed (though Star Trek reminiscenses are inevitable when Patrick Stewart appears in his stylized Tudor garments).
The acting is altogether quite good, with Bonham Carter, unsurprisingly, taking the laurels. Elwes does all he can with the heavily romanticized version of Guildford Dudley on offer in this script. It is hardly his fault that the rapid transformation from dissolute drunkard and whoremonger into ardent lover and idealistic defender of the poor does not come across as quite believable (he does better with the drunkard than with the idealist, by the way). Sara Kestelman is excellent as Jane's cruel and selfisch mother, and John Wood even better as the sinister, scheming Northumberland. Warren Saire deserves mention too, for his sympathetic and moving portrayal of the doomed King Edward VI. Jane Lapotaire brings subtlety to Queen Mary's character, and succeeds in making it felt that this queen isn't up for a very happy reign either.
This is a quiet movie, with a slow pace, that is carried by the believable chemistry between the two leads. It communicates a strong sense of the cruelty of those days, when death and disgrace were always lurking around the corner and individual fates counted for nothing. It does not eschew the cliché, to which it occassionally succumbs in rather silly ways (e.g., Jane muses on her impending death and a flock of birds flies by). The music is horribly bombastic and at times quite misplaced. Yet none of this results in serious damage, and the end, featuring a minute reconstruction of Jane's execution, may well leave you a little shaken; - the image of the blindfolded young girl desperatly groping for the block, is quite unsettling. In all, a worthwhile and interesting movie.