hamlet-16

This film turned up on new releases at Netflix just when I needed a little light movie.

It is a film that you know from the very beginning where you will go... but it is a journey that is so life affirming and so full of joy and love you need to take it.

Yes the themes are serious at times. And yes you will cry .... but you will laugh and laugh out loud.

It also looks beautiful and Rafael Vitti does an amazing job and I can see that the dog(s) who play Caramelo must have loved him. Their interactions are so natural.

Highly recommended for all doggie lovers.

But have the handkerchiefs ready.....

The critics have been cruel. The ratings are middling BUT they miss the point.

This is a typical Agatha Christie-esque who-dunnit.... take a group of people at a country house and have a dead body type of whodunnit.

So it becomes a sort of puzzle.

1. Attractive cast - check 2. Attractive locale - check 3. Characters with secrets - check 4. Characters with motive - check 5. Characters with opportunity - check 6. Murder victim who may or may not be a nice person - check 7. Big reveal at the end after assorted red herrings are resolved. - check

Now comes the hard part. Is it well done?

Actually I think it is. It does drag at little in the middle but the resolution works.

As for the cast. I think they all do quite well and Nicole Kidman whom I have never quite taken to actually surprises me. I usually find her cold but in this, at the end, I fully understood her character. Her much maligned accent actually makes sense in the circumstances.

Give it a try. It is not the greatest mystery ever but it is fun if you just go along for the ride.

History is a strange thing it is not a straight no matter how much some people want it to be.

Mary & George is about one of the many favourites of King James 1 of England. As portrayed here, and apparently in fact, James enjoyed the company of his male favourites to that of his wife and as a consequence young men vie for his favours as young women would vie for a monarch's favour in other royal courts.

One such is George Villiers (Nicholas Galitzine) whose mother is like a stage mother from hell, played with delicious venom by the wonderful Julianne Moore.

This series is sexual more than sexy. Raw in its use of language. Violent in its telling of history. Political games are played and won and lost.

The script is not too removed from know historical facts at least as far as Villiers and the King are concerned.

The design, costumes and cinematography are breathtaking.

Galitzine plays Villiers with an insouciance and gradual knowing of his role and power.

There is much black humour in this series but at its heart is a story rarely told of homosexual monarchs and the games played around them.