The Spanish Princess Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

The Spanish Princess Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 15, 2019

The Six Wives of Henry VIII was a kind of high-falutin’ version of “must see television” back in the day, becoming a late summer sensation for CBS in 1971 (and later getting rebroadcast on Public Broadcasting stations nationally). This early miniseries offered us former colonists a little history lesson in the wandering eye of one evidently randy king of England, with one of the interesting things about that production being that each of its six episodes focused on one of the (mostly) unfortunate women who had the bad luck to actually marry Henry. There have been a lot of films that have featured Henry VIII, and there have even been occasional films featuring at least one of his wives, notably Anne of the Thousand Days, but how many of you could name Henry’s wives (in order or not), let alone share any salient information about any of them? To that particular rescue comes The Spanish Princess, the latest Starz entry in what has become a kinda sorta franchise that previously offered viewers The White Queen and The White Princess.

Catherine of Aragon (Charlotte Hope) is arguably one of the better known wives of Henry VIII, perhaps not only because she came first, but also because she tends to pop up in some of those “other” films or television shows about Henry, including a memorable turn by Irene Papas in the role in Anne of the Thousand Days. History buffs will probably know that there was a lot to Catherine’s story before she married Henry, some of which was at least hinted at in the episode devoted to her in the now long ago Six Wives of Henry VIII, but which is here given more “breathing room”, with the result that interactions between Henry (Ruairi O'Connor) and Catherine don’t really even begin to heat up until the third episode of this piece.

That allows The Spanish Princess time to do a couple of things that this would be franchise has already proven itself quite adept at: at least dancing around the actual history involved, and also offering a good, heaping dose of heaving bosoms and at least occasionally rapacious men. In that regard, it’s kind of sweet in a way that the first couple of episodes here are largely devoted to Arthur (Angus Imrie), to whom Catherine was originally betrothed and whom she in fact married, but who in this version has a bit of a confidence problem when it comes to consummating the marriage. While that specific problem is ultimately addressed (leading to a few complications down the pike), it does tend to paint Arthur has a kind of nerdy “beta” male, while Henry, his younger brother known as Harry, comes off as definitely “alpha”, for better or worse. There’s some soap operatic drama playing out in the background of this kinda sorta ménage à trois involving Harry having ghostwritten love letters supposedly from Arthur, a probably needless plot element that seems weirdly reminiscent of Cyrano de Bergerac.

The series also kind of interestingly gets into Moorish and therefore Muslim culture, to various degrees of effectiveness. There’s a kind of secondary and again arguably needless subplot involving Catherine’s lady in waiting Lina de Cardonnes (Stephanie Levi-John), a black Catholic who is obviously headed toward star-crossed romance territory with a guard who is a secret Muslim. It’s arguably a little on the exploitative side, with an admitted attempt to tie things into the supposed historical record. That record may go by the wayside more than a time or two, though, as with another reference to Islam that the series also tries to do with regard to Catherine herself, where she “confesses” to Arthur that she has two sides, a Catholic and a Moorish.

With an understanding that you might not be getting “the facts, and just the facts, Your Highness” in this account, The Spanish Princess is another well crafted melodrama, even if the dialogue can be on the hilariously florid side of things at times. The series excels both in its rather handsome production design, as well as the broad array of really superb performances that adorn many of the episodes. Hope brings Catherine nicely alive, offering a portrait that is steely yet vulnerable. But it’s a couple of the other women who may raise a few eyebrows, including Downton Abbey’s Laura Carmichael as Maggie Pole, a woman whose family may be harboring resentment toward Catherine; Harriet Walter as Margaret Beaufort, Henry VIII’s scheming grandmother; and Alexandra Moen as Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII’s scheming mother.

The Spanish Princess Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Spanish Princess is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and Starz with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Once again the IMDb doesn't offer much in the way of technical data, but this interview with cinematographer Maja Zamojda, who did all but one of the episodes, mentions the Arri Alexa, and as usual I'm presuming everything was finished at a 2K DI. This is the latest in Lionsgate's new(ish) foray into BD-R territory, though as with the recently reviewed Under the Silver Lake, I think you'd be hard pressed (no pun intended) to tell with regard to picture quality. While I was a little surprised to see some relatively anemic bitrates, the actual look of this series is frequently quite sumptuous, with a nicely suffused palette and some excellent fine detail on the often elaborate period sets and costumes. There are some intentionally "dewy" shots that look they were altered with diffusion filters where detail levels understandably falter a bit, and there are some passing moments of CGI, notably in some establishing shots of castles and the like, where there's some prevalent softness, but generally speaking this is a sharp, vivid and well detailed looking presentation.

The Spanish Princess Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Spanish Princess features a nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that provides some nice spacious accountings of a rather beautiful score by Samuel Sim and Chris Egan, as well as providing good placement of ambient environmental effects in the many outdoor scenes. The cavernous palace sequences also have some nice reverberant effects which rather smartly delineate the kind of "echo"-y acoustics. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout, as is occasional voiceover.

The Spanish Princess Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements offered on either of the two discs in this set, but Starz has helpfully (?) included trailers for some of the other offerings in this series on both discs.

The Spanish Princess Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you were a fan of either The White Queen and/or The White Princess, you'll pretty much know what to expect with regard to The Spanish Princess. Philippa Gregory's source novels, which I admittedly have never read, seem to be very popular mixtures of history and fiction, and they've received rather sumptuous productions with these television adaptations thus far. This may not in fact be only history, but it's an often engaging soap opera with some elegant production flourishes. This set of BD-Rs looks and sounds fine in my opinion, for those who are worried about technical merits. Recommended.