Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986)

A correct TV drama. But not more. The subject was interesting and the speculations was not insignificant but only virtue of this film is presence of Olivia de Havilland as Maria Feodorovna. After years and canonization of Romanovs, the film is almost nice. Story about a woman who believes be daughter of last Czar , vulnerable Amy Irving and seducer Jan Niklas are parts of an over time and relevant may be short appearance of Omar Sharif, very young Christian Bale or Rex Harrison. The result - easy video, fake problem, trace of an evaporated perfume and few minutes of remembrance of a heinous murder. In fact, only sin of this movie is not stop after the Imperial Family assassination.

The screenplay is the worst part of this film, as it lurches from one premise to the next, missing all the important bits that would have made a number of different stories possible. (This film is confusing, because the audience doesn't know what the story is.) I had no problem with the low-production values and the acting wasn't great, but this is telly, so it was fine. I don't mind if some scenes looked like they were done in one take. But having such a non-sensical screenplay is completely unnecessary. Did any executive actually read it before forking out the cash? Avoid this at all costs.The prologue in particular was so poorly written, it needed a voice-over to fill in all the details that had been left out. The prologue was rushed, it wasn't clear what was happening, ie. The Russian Revolution was reduced to "Some riots are happening in Petersburg", with the next scene being soldiers arresting them. I know the basic history of the Revolution, so I could fill in the details, "those pesky Communists". The prologue is best ignored.This could have been a thoughtful study of a person who is confused about who she is. It sets up this premise in the asylum. It could then have her struggling to identify herself for the rest of the film. No. Gone. The film assumes she is who she says she is (even though there is still no empirical evidence.) It sets up a melodramatic romance, a love so strong, it'll believe anything she says. Okay, a soppy romance. No, because it makes no sense. The love interest seems like a crazed (and incidentally, sleazy) lunatic, bursting out in wild gestures. This also doesn't work, because the film stupidly decides to tell the truth in the monologue at the end. They never got married and she returned to America. The love story collapses. Despite there being plenty of love scenes, I was never convinced of the reason that they were in love. I find rom-com romances more convincing, despite there only being one or two scenes which establish that they've even spent any time with each other.It could have been a thriller-type thing where the film assumes she is who she says she is, and she struggles to prove her identity. No, the court case is summed up rather than dealt with. The bizarre voice over comes back, again to fill in the details of a better film.The funniest thing to consider is what really happened. Anna Anderson was a loony who went to America and married another loony and they did crazy things together. Throughout her life, she had bouts of lunatic behaviour. None of this in the film either. There's a really annoying character in the asylum who crops up from nowhere and announces herself as a 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next/'Twelve Monkeys'-type informant. Thankfully, she vanishes, having brought nothing to the story.

It's out of question that the real Anna Anderson was NOT Princess Anastasia. Apart from very distinctive differences in physical appearance(Anderson's eyes are perceivably larger, lips thicker, nose larger and turned up at the end....etc), Anderson's unable to speak Russian was a ridiculous tell......That's why I detest Anna Anderson and her confederates so much. Not a lot of swindlers have the audacity and endurance to scam for 60+ years with such a blatantly untenable scheme.Yet to some extent I have sympathy for Anna Anderson. Life must have been hard for a young Polish peasant worker in those days. And to impersonate another woman for 60+ years is an arduous task for anybody.She had to hold back her fleshy lips all the time to mimic the thin lips of Anastasia's, and had to occasionally go lunatic to make people believe all her chaotic memory was just a result of mental problem.Anna Anderson was an awesome woman on a wrong track. Had she put her good-looks, learned elegance, endurance, acting skills into proper use, she could of made a first-class actress.On a side note: Some main characters of this two-parter seem to be loosely based on real figures. Prince Erich could be a mixture of Gleb Botkin(believed by many the most possible brain behind the whole scheme), Duke George and Dmitri of Leuchtenberg, and several other figures. And Darya Romanoff seem to be based on the gorgeous Princess Xenia Georgievna Romanova. But unlike the real confederates, Prince Erich was motiveless in this show and supported Anna out of love for and sincere belief in her, which is touching.On the whole this is a great show. Fictionalised a bit but still remains faithful to the reality. The power of Amy Irving's acting lies in that she successfully represented Anderson's self-assuredness, the mixture of impersonating others and being herself is intriguing. Just as Princess Xenia said about Anderson:"She was herself at all times and never gave the slightest impression of acting a part." Highly recommended.

The poor woman who was portrayed in this movie would be convincing except for DNA evidence proving she wasn't Anastasia Romonov. Either you believe she was who she said she was or the member of the British royal family who provided DNA and shared a common ancestor with the Romonov's in Queen Victoria wasn't who they said they were which is unlikely, this aside the woman probably believed she was a Romonov even though she obviously wasn't the film seems to make her out as a callous actress who was playing everybody for fools as an alternative for her mental problems said by the surviving family even so this film was entertaining and doesn't end the mystery which was unsolved at the time of it's making but shows it as it was a mystery and I'm glad the DNA evidence is conclusive since there would be people on the internet arguing whether she was who she said she was.