Lady Jane

Although it has been more than a decade since I saw Lady Jane, I remember that it moved me greatly. The ambiance and characters are fully developed. Helen Bonham Carter was quite young, perfect for the role, and turned out to be quite a revelation. I saw the film in Madrid. I'll never forget the sight of a middle aged Spaniard (male) in the audience weeping at the conclusion. (The Spanish nobility were the "bad guys" of this drama).

The first thing to love about this movie is how good it is at being a historical drama. It opens by telling you what has come before, and the ending is made even more poignant (if that is possible) by knowing what will come after. In between, it stays far more authentic than many "historical" movies ever bother to with little apparent effort. This ease is due not only to the gripping bit of history being told, but to the superb acting by all the major players.

While none of the performances are bad, or even mediocre, some bits manage to shine even brighter. Jane Lapotaire as Princess Mary is wonderfully haunted by longing and desperation behind the strong, poised front. Patrick Stewart shows us ever so briefly that his Henry Grey is not only a cold-hearted conspirator and dominating patriarch, but a father who desperate needs to make things right for his little girl. Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes play superbly off each other as Lady Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley, bringing out nuances in each other's performance that cement the core of this beautiful story.

"The next time I see your face, I want it for eternity." If you know much at all about Lady Jane Grey and her unfortunate marriage to Guildford Dudley, you must know this cannot at all be what she said to him as they were parted for the last time. Yet the story branches away from the historical aspects of Jane's life and builds up a romance completely created in the minds of the writers, who have done an excellent job. In the beginning, the scene at Bradgate in Leicester, with the dance for the King, is extremely well shot. The plot thickens between the cunning Earl of Northumberland and the cold, greedy Duchess of Suffolk, while Jane argues theology with the Catholic doctor. Comparing this with history, I believe this was also very well written; from what I've read on Jane Grey (I have done extensive Tudor period research) I know she was very Protestant and, unlike the later Queen Elizabeth, very willing to argue on the topic of religion. Perhaps my favorite scene in the entire movie is the one where Jane goes to visit the Princess Mary. In this scene the Renaissance class system is extremely well depicted. The outwardly friendly but rather sneaky nature the Princess' maid (I believe that is Lady Anne Wharton) conducts herself shows the "subservience of the lesser nobility"; the proud way Jane speaks to the maid shows what the upper nobility could do; and then the regal, majestic, icy cold way the Princess Mary enters the room and "embraces" her second-cousin is the perfect example of a Princess of two royal bloodlines. Later, the love that blooms between Guildford and Jane will, without a doubt, sweep you off your feet. If you've ever been in love, I guarantee you'll relive some fond memories there. Overall, an excellent movie and highly recommended.

Lady Jane had much going for it, including a talented cast, that it had Trevor Nunn directing and that it was covering an interesting but not-quite-as-well-known part of Tudor history. And while it has its imperfections it is more than worthwhile. Some of the first part of the film is sluggishly paced, the film is often over-scored in both a bombastic and syrupy way(though also with some lovely moments) and a lot of the supporting roles are written in a stock way(ie. Duke of Northumberland, as untrustworthy as the man was I'm not sure whether he was quite the scheming villain that the film made him out to be, could be wrong though). There is also one unbelievable scene which was when Jane swore that her husband would never be given the title of king, that would have made sense if the film had maintained that Jane and Guildford hated each other but instead it makes them madly in love which was rather conflicting.

However, there is much to recommend. If you're wondering how accurate Lady Jane is to history, in places it does play fast and loose(the romance being the biggest one) but most of the time it is accurate(especially with Jane's execution), at least it didn't feel grossly distorted and gratuitous like Henry VIII with Ray Winstone did. First off, Lady Jane is incredibly well-made, the costumes, sets and scenery are colourful and immaculate in detail(perhaps too much so at times), the lighting is dynamic and the photography is beautiful. The script doesn't do as good a job with developing the supporting roles but does a wonderful job with Jane, who goes through several character stages. The dialogue is thoughtful and avoids being too mawkish. The story is compellingly told and plausible on the whole, despite a few pacing lulls and that one conflict in the central romance, there's plenty to be entertained by and the ending is truly emotional. The romance is not 100% believable and has an 1980s feel at times, but it was also rather touching and the chemistry between Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes smolders. Trevor Nunn directs beautifully, and Lady Jane is very well cast and acted. Helena Bonham Carter is both sexy and fiery but in the later parts she's heartfelt as well, while Cary Elwes is similarly excellent. John Wood's Northumberland is one of his serious roles and he does great at being sinister and Patrick Stewart plays a scheming, cold-hearted character menacingly and movingly. Jane Lapotaire is a haunting Mary and Michael Hordern and Sara Kestelman's performances are fine too.

In conclusion, imperfect but well done. 7/10 Bethany Cox

It's difficult to know how to take a film that begins with a history lesson (to the self-important sound of a beating drum, no less) and ends with a quote from Plato. Between the two is a narrative that wants to be both a conventional love story and an unconventional period film. It doesn't quite succeed at either, but for viewers of LADY JANE, the pleasure is in the details, and there are plenty of those.

To first dispense with the glaring historical inaccuracy that lies at the film's center, Lady Jane Grey, the Nine-Day Queen of England in 1553, did not in truth have a passionate love match in her husband, Guilford Dudley. Theirs was an arranged marriage, highly political in nature and masterminded by Dudley's ambitious father, the Duke of Northumberland. In reality, Jane resented and distrusted her husband, who was a spoiled and rather empty-headed young man with none of the high intellectual achievement so prominent in Jane.

For the second dispensation, Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Jane, is still unskilled at acting in this, her first role. She can furrow her brow with admirable dexterity to denote every emotion from confusion to embarrassment to sexual fulfillment, but there's little evidence of much going on behind, in the furrows of an actor's brain. However, since those afore-mentioned details surround her, it becomes fairly easy for a more demanding audience to overlook her callowness.

Now for the details, beginning with everyone else in the cast. Has John Wood ever utilised his supercilious half-smile to better advantage? As Northumberland, he's perfect - driven by the need to consolidate his power when Jane's cousin Edward VI falls into a fatal illness, he conceives a scheme that will require relentless control over nearly everyone at court. While his fellow ministers, all burly toughs, inevitably knuckle under to his combination of silken flattery and outright threats, he's thwarted by two seemingly weak women - Jane and Mary Tudor (played with real grit and bitterness by Jane Lapotaire). It's a tossup whether Wood is better at the threats or at two points of emotional breakdown - one, when he must cast the die and order the agonising prolongation of Edward's death to complete his plans, or when, mud-pelted and dishevelled following his defeat by Mary's army, he ends up in the Tower, where all he can offer to his sons and followers is a weary, `I'm sorry.' It's the rare film where Wood's comic instincts don't get the better of his serious performance - this is one of them.

As Jane's equally controlling parents, Patrick Stewart and Sara Kestelman are almost as good. Stewart's character, the Duke of Suffolk, isn't a bright man, but his pursuit of his ambitions never quite overrides his notion of family honor, and this keeps him sympathetic, as all the supposed villains of the film remain. That's another of the details that deserves cherishing - the refusal to go for simplistic characters. Stewart is especially good when he throws all caution to the wind and raises an army to rescue his daughter, overriding even the objections of his formidable wife.

Other details are in the costuming, the suitably squalid tavern and brothel scenes, the bit where the aristocratic Kestelman chows down on her dinner, gnawing on a greasy chop and wiping her mouth with her sleeve, and the achingly beautiful winter deer hunt that runs under the opening credits. All this and more make up for a downbeat ending and a central failure to come up with a satisfying examination of that most enigmatic of queens, Lady Jane Grey.