Lovers of historical movies, unite!

It must be a tough balance to make a historical movie, particularly a movie like Warm Springs, which I watched last night (I made myself take a break between seasons 2 and 3 of Veronica Mars). It's about Franklin Roosevelt's fight with polio, which honestly doesn't sound that fascinating unless you're already interested in Roosevelt or polio or, I guess, history in general. The problem, then, is that you get people like me watching it--people who already know the story and can critique any liberties you take with, you know, the way things actually happened.

I did enjoy the movie, though I got frustrated with it. I like that it included FDR's infidelities with Lucy Mercer, though I disliked that they used that to set up a reconcilitation of sorts between FDR and Eleanor. It did help the wounds heal a bit, but they hardly fell in love all over again, as the movie shows. It would be kind of a bummer to end the movie with, "On April 12, 1945, Franklin died at Warm Springs. Lucy Mercer was there with him," even though it's the truth.

I also found the timeline confusing; it seemed to show that his bid for vice president came before his time as assistant secretary of the Navy, which wasn't the case. But I did like the portrayal of Franklin's mothere, which seemed fairly accurate. And it's pretty cool that they filmed at Warm Springs. I've always wanted to go, so it's neat to see how it actually looks. And the performances were good.

I kind of wish I had watched it with someone who wasn't as familiar with the story as I was, but that goes back to the initial problem--who watched this movie, other than people like me?