Legendary Love Story

Lady Jane

Directed by Trevor Nunn

At the USA Copley Place

On February 12th, 1554, 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey and her husband, 19-year-old Lord Guilford Dudley were executed for treason at the Tower of London. Innocent pawns in a plot engineered by the influential Duke of Northumberland to alter the plan of royal succession as drawn up by the late King Henry VIII, the two young nobles were imprisoned by the allegedly rightful heir Queen Mary after a nine-day period during which Jane ruled England as Queen.

FIVE DAYS SHORT of the 432nd anniversary of Lady Jane Grey's death Paramount Pictures begins its limited release of Lady Jane, a two and a half-hour historical epic featuring a slightly embellished version of the events surrounding the girl-queen's life and death. Brimming with Renaissance cantatas sung by an invisible chorus, elegantly outfitted noble lords and ladies, broad, sweeping shots of the glorious English countryside, meticulously reconstructed regal interiors and a heavy dose of iconographical pageantry, Lady Jane would seem more at home in the context of such decade-old films as A Man for All Seasons and Anne of a Thousand Days than among the current crop of long-playing MTV music videos filling our theatres.

Kudos to Director Trevor Nunn and screenwriter David Edgar for providing the intelligent, sophisticated, movie-goer with a reason to turn off the VCR and head for the darkened aisles.

What makes Lady Jane such a truly enjoyable film is that it offers something to satisfy every possible taste, deftly combining aspects of the suspense thriller, light comedic, romantic and dramatic genres.

Suspense comes with the underhanded, dastardly intrigues of Lord Guilford's father, the historically in famous Duke of Northumberland. The controlling force behind the during the latter portion of Edward VI's reign, it was Northumberland's lust for power that prompted him to arrange the marriage between his rather impish Beau-Brummel-of-a-son and the potential inheritress Jane, then fourth in line for the throne.

Magnificently captured by Shakespearian actor John Wood, most familiar to recent movie-going audiences as the elusive Dr. Stephen Falken in War Games, Northumberland is every inch the cold-hearted villain, complete with gaunt complexion, beady eyes and extended five o'clock shadow. The first of the principal actors to appear on-screen, we see him directly after the camera shows the ax being lowered over the head of King Edward's former favorite, the Duke of Somerset. After hearing of Somerset's death, Northumberland nestles back into his chair and with an admirable coolness, casually inquires, "Did he die well?"

CARY ELWES as Northumberland's wayward son, Guilford, is solely responsible for the film's comedic angle. A frequent client at all of greater London's bars, bawdy houses, and brothels, the unscrupulous Guilford would seem the least likely martimonial candidate for the solemn and studious Jane. Thanks to the wry wit of screenwriter Edgar, Guilford is never at a loss for words. Countering his nervous bride-to-be's request that they live "as cousins," Guilford tells her that when he was informed of the marriage he was "sampling the pleasures of a certain lady of the evening."

There is more to Guilford than meets the eye, however, as Elwes is careful to point out in his interpretation of the character. Removed to the solitude of a country priory after his marriage to Jane, his formerly Falstaffian antics are revealed as a cover for his profound discontentedness at the current state of affairs in the country. His emotional grasp of the politico-economic situation complements Jane's intellectual ponderings--they are, as Guilford later points out, "two sides of the same coin."

Their intellectual union presupposes a physical one, the consummation of their love is possible only after they discover themselves to be politically compatible. This "coming together" is one of the film's most charming scenes, with Guilford asking Jane to outline her religious beliefs as he surreptitiously moves closer to her on their bed, tossing aside the book of Platonic theory that had been holding the bride's attention before he entered the room.

In a wise move by Edgar, much of Jane and Guilford's love story is left unscripted, director Nunn relying instead on long, music-filled shots of the two kissing by a bubbling brook, riding over pastoral fields and playfully tickling each other in the hayloft. Reminiscent of a more modern Love Story whose protagonists played touch football in a snowy Harvard Stadium, these sequences are much more effective than the written word in capturing the quick, physical passion of adolescent love.

ALL OF NUNN'S EFFORTS would be entirely fruitless, however, were it not for the expertise and finesse Helena Bonham Carter in providing Jane with a credible range of emotions to complement the metamorphoses undergone by her character as she progresses from shy, introverted, young scholar to innocent bride to the ruler of England. The catalyst which triggers this series of changes is her growing love for Guilford and her subsequent initiation into womanhood. Even taking into account the self-imposed constraints of cinematic exposition, Jane's blossoming into adulthood occurs far too quickly; on her wedding night, we see her reading Plato in bed, demurely clad in a nightgown that laces up to her chin. The next evening, however, after her first tryst with Guilford, she gaily parades around in front of her husband and the servants dressed in nothing but her shift and bawdily sporting Guilford's great riding boots before she plunks herself into his lap for kiss and a cuddle.

Light comedy and idyllic romance give way to more substantial drama as the film moves on to chronicle the political machinations that resulted in Jane Grey Dudley's briefly becoming Queen of England. This is perhaps the least satisfying portion of the film, largely because we know that her abrupt rise to power will soon be followed by an equally abrupt decline from it.

This is also the only segment of the film to suffer from glaring historical inaccuracies. A liberal use of creative license gives the audience the distinct impression not only that Jane must have been on the throne for quite longer than a week and two days, but also that many decrees of substance were put into operation under her personal super vision. The sad, unromantic truth of those nine days is that they constituted a reign in name only, fraught as they were with civil strife and disorder, not to mention differences of opinion among those directly manipulating the young queen. No actions for the poor were taken, no attempt was made to resolve the national inflation, and no move was initiated to improve education. Jane and Guilford had as little to do with politics after she became queen as they did prior to her makeshifts coronation.

Unfortunately for all lovers on romance and fairy tale, Edgar and Nunn remain true to history in the film's conclusion, ending Lady Jane with the heroine's execution. But English history has served them well here, and their fine adaptation of the events of 1554 is a lesson to contemporary filmmakers that we need only to look in our history books to find the greatest stories of all.