Blood Sex & Royalty Review: A Netflix Series That Does Not Find The Right Target

Cast: Adam Astill, Callum Coates, Stephen Fewell, Lois Brabin-Platt, Nikhita Lesler, John Lumsden, Sophie Boettge, Amy James-Kelly

Creator: Karen Kelly

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 2/5 (two stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

The docuseries Blood Sex & Royalty – which arrives today on Netflix – sets out to explore the most shocking events of the British royal family in the sixteenth century. Specifically, we follow Anne Boleyn’s journey to the court of Henry VIII, where she will have to juggle political and sexual intrigues. In our review of Blood, Sex & Royalty we will try to understand the errors of this TV series, which would like to be a sort of modern Docu-Drama on the Tudor dynasty, but inevitably slips into the milder clichés of the period drama, never making its intention and much less the relevant public.

Blood, Sex & Royalty Review: The Story Plot

In the 16th century women could choose between “being a wife, a nun or an old maid”: Anne Boleyn, in the court of King Henry VIII, would have defied the rules, even if it would not have proved an easy task. The series follows the exploits of Anne Boleyn who, together with her sister was educated in Amboise, France, where she makes short that “the French court is a hotbed of debauchery“. However, since her youth, Anna demonstrated that she excelled in studies and this brought her closer to Margaret of Angoulême, sister of King Francis I of her and intellectual. The series deals more specifically with the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, an uneasy union between political turmoil and personal tragedy. Anne is ambitious, she desires religious reform and promotes education, so she will soon become a thorn in Henry’s side.

Blood, Sex & Royalty Review and Analysis

Everything that Sex, Blood and Royalty thinks to tell us for the first time has already been proven by countless other sources: she is known as the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had, as she brought about a change in controlled conservative society by the Church, causing Henry VIII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and declaring the independence of the English Church from the Vatican. But the record of her is scarce, as many memories of her were destroyed following her dramatic fall from grace. Henry was notorious for erasing his ex-wives and his favorites from history, and Anna was no exception. With the help of archives, portraits and testimonials from people who knew her, she has inspired many previous films and series. Historians describe her as a feisty, outspoken and fiercely intelligent woman who defies the macho world of the Tudors and takes control of her destiny.

She reads controversial books, and she believes in education being open to all: she would like to reform society with her radical religious beliefs. Anne is truly an enigma, and she easily charms the most powerful man in the kingdom. With an approach that would like to be unprecedented, the series alternates more dramatized storylines with the testimonies of numerous experts – professors and historians – to foment this sense of scandal and hidden secrets that hovers over the whole series and already starts from the title of the product. Using a contemporary soundtrack (rap, electro, techno, ambient), the stories of the British royal family would like to become much more engaging for today’s audience; in particular, Anne Boleyn constantly breaks the fourth wall, trying to make us complicit in thoughts of her.

In this case, sorry to say, the voluminous plot between costume soap and documentary-art intentions also fails to appeal to the lucrative young adult audience. Young Anne – barely drawn from British history and a far cry from her amusing reenactment at Bridgerton – has “embraced the feminist in her“, influenced by the sister of Francis I of France, and refuses to be anyone’s mistress, least of all the King of England. At least interesting intentions, if only of feminist traits there is no hint in the characterization of Anna, a mere figure who tries to entertain the public between subplots whose value – both textual and visual – is ephemeral.

“t was like Woodstock on steroids”, says an expert on Henry VIII’s court. All right – in addition to the six weddings of Henry VIII it is known that the sixteenth-century courts lived in pomp and luxury – but without the slightest creative twist to consider it, at least, a trash product, a guilty pleasure, a diversion from the ugliness of the world. Forget Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola, her childish naivety that becomes overflowing at the court of Versailles: this Anne Boleyn even claims to be interviewed. She is so cultured and revolutionary in spirit – about every five minutes some character has to reiterate this – that she feels the need to do her utmost as a dispenser of advice for the entire female gender. She recalls that “at the French court there was such a ferment” and that Marguerite “was a nerd and chic goddess” which had made her understand that women all over the world where being “screwed over”.

Blood, Sex & Royalty Review: The Last Words

Without ever declaring its attention and with an indefinable target audience, Blood, Sex and Royalty turns out to be an insipid product, not at all as modern and revolutionary as one would like to declare. Anne Boleyn is so full of herself in this series that it’s hard to believe the character and narrative construct of which she wants to be the protagonist: the royal setting is there, there is sex everywhere – quoting Anne Boleyn – but blood, unfortunately, only the bitter one remains.