Blah de Blah, Etcetera, Etcetera

Even though this is going to look a little weird in the middle of a load of beautiful Sherlockian quotes, here goes!

To be perfectly honest, ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ is not something I’d normally sit down and watch, and to be equally as honest, it’s not something I’d watch again. Yes, I’m interested in history; in fact, I love it. But watching some wishy washy “let’s turn this historical event/person into a romantic/tragic movie with women wailing and crying and men talking posh whilst riding horses” really doesn’t appeal to me. Unless, of course, a certain Mr Benedict Cumberbatch joins in the action and lands himself a part. A very small part, but even so. (William Carey, if you're interested.) In fact, who in their right mind would even contemplate giving even a young version of our Ben one of the smallest “main” parts in any movie? But then, these weren’t exactly the best movie makers, as anyone who watched this film must surely agree.

Before you think I’m having a moan just for the sake of it, I sat down to watch the film with an open mind, blah de blah, etcetera, etcetera; but I genuinely didn’t enjoy it. They tried to go down the “Anne Boleyn wasn’t the innocent girl we get taught about in school” route, and credit where credit’s due, according to Wikipedia, they’re right. Although there’s always the possibility that they wrote and edited Anne’s wiki page themselves. However, their attempt to portray this “real” Anne didn’t work in the slightest. If you’re going to go down that route, you at least have to mention her affairs with both the French King and his courtiers, not just pick and choose the bits you want to include. Go back to History class.

In fact, only Benedict’s brief appearances, and the naïve hope that he might make some more, kept me watching this slow burner. The single moving scene in the film was when he was getting his heart broken by ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’. I can’t even remember her name. (Neither could the person who wrote the title by the looks of it.) There are times in life when you just want to hug someone, and this was most definitely one of them. Bless him. He’s amazing. Unfortunately, this film was not.

But that’s okay, because there are plenty of other opportunities for me to watch Benedict in all his awesomeness.

More soon

BB J


"Cumberbatch – it sounds like a fart in a bath, doesn’t it? What a fluffy old name. I can never say it on a Monday morning. When I became an actor, Mum wasn’t keen on me keeping it."