Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5182 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-05-17
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: Spanish, English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 136 minutes

Synopsis
After the death of King Henry VIII and his young son and heir Edward VI, Henry's 15-year-old great-niece, Lady Jane Grey (Helena Bonham Carter), is chosen to rule by a group of palace conspirators who vow to keep the country Protestant and out of the hands of the Church of Rome. She is crowned, against her will, and her reign lasts only nine days, until Henry's legitimate daughter Princess Mary, by first wife the Catholic Catherine of Aragon, and her supporters rally around and crown her Queen instead. Jane is imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually beheaded, along with her husband, Guildford Dudley (Cary Elwes), for what is presumed to be their part in the conspiracy. The film chronicles, fairly accurately, Jane's growth, during her extremely short reign, from a bookish intellectual to a confident, and politically progressive young woman who refuses to conform to the religious hypocrisies of 16th Century England.

Customer Reviews

Well worth watching
I don't remember this film at all when it came out and I don't remember it ever being shown on TV, which is a real shame as I think it deserves a wider audience. There are some very fine performances notably from Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes. The acting, costumes and script are generally very good but I found the musical score a little overbearing at times.

The scheming and ambitious John Dudley Duke of Northumberland is the vilain of the piece. He convinces the dying king Edward to change Henry VIII's will and disinherit his sisters Mary and Elizabeth and name Lady Jane as his successor. In my view too little is seen of the young King Edward VI and his sister Mary. Mary is seen giving an early warning to Jane but is next seen riding in triumph to London when Jane's reign is finished. Some other parts of the plot could have been fleshed out a little rather then concentrating on the romance between Jane and Northumberland's son Guildford Dudley.

The idealism of the young queen and her husband make the viewer sympathetic to them. Jane's parents are also shown as ruthless ambitious and greedy, her mother the Duchess of Suffolk portrayed as particulary cruel and unfeeling.

All in all I really enjoyed this film and would strongly recommend it.

Beautiful.
A very moving film. Two young people thrown together in marriage, arranged by their parents craving for power. Not liking each other then falling in love, Jane is made Queen without any knowlege of how to be queen. Then overthrown by Mary who has them both beheaded.

A very sad story but very good.

A very moving film
This is an excellent film, and I'm amazed I've never come across it before - just came on it by chance while browsing. I'm very interested in the Tudor period but didn't know a great deal about Lady Jane Grey, and I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I found it absorbing and very moving. Helena Bonham-Carter and Carys Elwes were superb as Jane and Guildford. It really brought home to me how tenuous life was in those days if you were close to the throne, and it was clear that Jane and Guildford were used as pawns in what was a (failed) attempt to avoid England returning to Catholicism following the death of Edward VI. But it was also a love story, with these two young people, still in their teens, forced very much against their wills to marry for political reasons, disliking each other intensely and then falling in love. Obviously their fate was known by the viewer from the outset, but it didn't make it any less sad when the inevitable happened. Mary I did not come out of this well, but of course this was just the start as far as she was concerned - she didn't get the title 'Bloody Mary' for nothing!

I highly recommend this film, and it's a pity is seems to have such a low profile, when we see so many films based on the life of Henry VIII and his many wives.