Rating: 
Summary: Desperately depressing Dalton disaster
Review: This is possibly the most miserable, gloomy film Timothy Dalton has ever made. He plays the King of Piedmont, who develops an inexplicable passion for a rather tiresome French countess. She, however, is devoted to her rather wet husband and wants nothing to do with the King, which shows from the beginning that she has deplorable taste. However, her husband's family want her to give into the King because he is making everyone's lives a misery moping about, and when in the end she realises even her husband wants her to give in to him, she agrees to become the King's mistress. She proceeds to revenge herself on her husband's family by having them banished to their family estate, but keeps her husband around to act as a lackey. Although the King is crazy about her, she still insists she doesn't love him, until in the end he loses his temper and gives her a black eye. While I don't in the least blame him, I feeel it would have made a more interesting scene if he had walloped her on a different portion of her anatomy. She persuades the King to get involved in a war with France, then gets ill with smallpox. Even after he has risked his life nursing her through the disease, the ungrateful bitch still doesn't love him, what a cow. Then she runs off with her wimpy husband, and the King is reduced to sniffing her underwear. It all ends miserably for everyone, in the pouring rain (it never seems to stop raining in Piedmont). I have no idea whether this preposterous film is based on true events, and if so how accurate it is, but the goings-on in Piedmont make the English monarchy look positively sane by comparison.
Rating:
Summary: Desperately depressing Dalton disaster
Review: This is possibly the most miserable, gloomy film Timothy Dalton has ever made. He plays the King of Piedmont, who develops an inexplicable passion for a rather tiresome French countess. She, however, is devoted to her rather wet husband and wants nothing to do with the King, which shows from the beginning that she has deplorable taste. However, her husband's family want her to give into the King because he is making everyone's lives a misery moping about, and when in the end she realises even her husband wants her to give in to him, she agrees to become the King's mistress. She proceeds to revenge herself on her husband's family by having them banished to their family estate, but keeps her husband around to act as a lackey. Although the King is crazy about her, she still insists she doesn't love him, until in the end he loses his temper and gives her a black eye. While I don't in the least blame him, I feeel it would have made a more interesting scene if he had walloped her on a different portion of her anatomy. She persuades the King to get involved in a war with France, then gets ill with smallpox. Even after he has risked his life nursing her through the disease, the ungrateful bitch still doesn't love him, what a cow. Then she runs off with her wimpy husband, and the King is reduced to sniffing her underwear. It all ends miserably for everyone, in the pouring rain (it never seems to stop raining in Piedmont). I have no idea whether this preposterous film is based on true events, and if so how accurate it is, but the goings-on in Piedmont make the English monarchy look positively sane by comparison.
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing, Violent and un-romantic...
Review: Timothy Dalton stars as: King Vittorio Amadeo, Valeria Golino stars as his battered and abused mistress Jeanne de Luynes. When Jeanne's loser husband Charles takes her to court, Jeanne catches the eye of debauched and spoiled King Vittorio Amadeo and is literally forced/coerced to become his mistress.While Jeanne exerts her power in her own ways, she becomes embittered and hardened. Amadeo is a brutal rapist and over time Jeanne comes to care for her evil and debauched captor (a classic case of Stockholm syndrome). Amadeo's obsessive love was evil, disturbing and all-consuming. While I enjoyed this movie, I felt sorry for Jeanne. She literally had no choice in her relationship. I had no sympathy for Amadeo who was evil and corrupt. I also was rather surprised that this movie was recommended as a 'love story.' A decent lover would never rape his mistress, or beat her. While this may be historically accurate, it is by no means romantic, and was in fact, quite off-putting. (Frankly I wish I'd been forewarned I would have avoided this altogether). Recommend for adults only due to suggestive scenes, nudity, violence, domestic violence and rape.
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