Netflix Finds: THE DEVIL'S WHORE

The Devil's Whore, retitled The Devil's Mistress for North American release for reasons I can only imagine are marketing-related and pandering to the hissy classes, is watchable enough as costume dramas go -- if you can handle its annoying flaws. These are few, but of the type that bug the hell out of me.

Set during the English Civil War and featuring therefore many fascinating historical characters played by pretty, pretty men in fake beards and hair extensions and photogenically placed prosthetic wens and scars, The Devil's Whore tells the story of the fictional Angelica Fanshawe (Andrea Riseborough). Angelica is gently born but abandoned by her Catholic mother (whom the Virgin Mary tells Mom to go to France and join a nunnery, prompting her tween daughter to conclude that she's not interested in praying to a god who tells mothers to abandon their childrens) and so grows up "wild" in the court of Charles I and at the side of her cousin Harry, who is to inherit her family's estate and whom she is intended to marry. In a tacked-on and unnecessary side plot, she also grows up having visions of the Devil, which visions continue into her adult life and for which she becomes a bit infamous.

Devil visions aside, Angelica is a bit of a Mary Sue, desired by all, uncommonly wise and principled, a crack shot with a pistol, and, most importantly, there to buck up, nag or otherwise manipulate many of the great men of the period (including Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Rainsborough, Freeborn John Lilburne and a character "based on" Edward Sexby) into fulfilling their historical roles. Her flaws are all charming ones, though they do get her first husband killed and earn her an implacable cardboard enemy; her first husband is executed by Charles I to punish him for giving up their great house without a fight (which he did because she wouldn't leave it and wanted bravely to die by his side defending it from the Roundheads) and she gains her enemy (amusingly played by Tim McInnenry of Blackadder fame) when, brought low by widowhood and the withdrawal of Charles I's financial support, she accidentally kills the man who wins the roshambo for the right to feed her pigeon pie and then get it on with her. Defending her virtue, you see. The loser of the roshambo begins to pursue her as a murderess, catches her several times, and gets the worst out of every encounter, even when he thinks he has successfully prosecuted her for murder.

Meanwhile, Angelica finds herself thrust into the stories of Lilburne (played in mulleted glory by Tom Goodman-Hill) and Rainsborough (Michael Fassbender), who are worth Wiki-ing if you don't know who they are (I didn't). Having spent the first act of her life as an ardent supporter of Charles I and the Established Order, she now adopts the Leveller cause* and doesn't bat an eye at the execution of her former patron and king (though she is, in her defense, otherwise occupied at the time). She comes to Lilburne's rescue several times and even smuggles some of his most incendiary pamphleteering to be published while he is in prison. She becomes Rainsborough's girlfriend. On and on and on.

But of course this story is really all about Angelica and Edward Sexby (John Simm, looking great with long hair, a beard, and a big scar across his left eye), a gritty, cynical fighting man who nonetheless falls in love with Angelica (unrequitedly) while serving as a sort of retainer in her first husband's household and proceeds to change his colors to match hers through the rest of the film, becoming first a dedicated Roundhead and Leveller and later, after the wonderfully radical Rainsborough is offed, plots to assassinate Oliver Cromwell when he learns the man whom he's pretty sure sacrificed Rainsborough to his own ambition is about to be made king in all but name.

Could any of this have happened without Angelica? Well, it did, of course. And if that kind of thing bothers you, then avoid this miniseries completely. But if all you're looking for is some harmless historical romance, I suppose you could do worse. It did win a few awards, so there's that...

Me, I would have liked it a lot better if there were more battle and less lovey dovey, but that's just me.

*The Levellers being more or less the Occupy Wall Street movement of their day, but more focused and goal-oriented than their modern counterparts.