YMMV / Young Bess

• Alternate Character Interpretation: The Historical Hero Upgrade of Tom Seymour could be just from Kat's own fantasies and Rose-Tinted Narrative of Bess as a teenager.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • A lot of viewers note that Rex Thompson comes close to stealing the show as Edward.
  • Barnaby, the Butt-Monkey of a servant, gets a lot of love from fans too.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Due to the Squicky nature of Tom and Bess's romance, a lot of fans ship her with Barnaby instead. He looks like he was enjoying that kiss.
• Genius Bonus: Anne of Cleves is never seen, and her voice is only heard. Viewers savvy on Tudor history know all about her short marriage - and how conflicting reports can't decide whether she was actually ugly or Henry was just being a Jerkass.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Kitty Hollywood summed it up in her review that the film should be watched for all the Costume Porn and pageantry rather than historical fact.
• Moment of Awesome: Bess's fantastic "Reason You Suck" Speech to Ned Seymour and the council, when they try to accuse her of conspiring against them. Even better is that in real life the council thought it would be easy to bully a confession out of a fifteen-year-old girl - but she held out for weeks and was strong enough that they had no evidence to convict her.
• Narm: Catherine's death, due to how closely it resembles the Victorian Novel Disease. She appears to get ill simply from Bess choosing to leave. In reality it was Death by Childbirth, which the film chooses to leave out.
• Narm Charm: After Bess's powerful speech, Anne Seymour sees her shadow reflected as a towering figure on the wall as she walks away. Melodramatic? Yes. Awesome? Yes.
• Tear Jerker: The flashback to Anne Boleyn's execution. Kat Ashley is in the nursery with baby Bess when she hears the gunshot to signal that Anne is now dead. She picks up the baby and whispers "we are not the future queen any longer."
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Catherine Parr gets less to do in the film than the posters would let on. Her conflict with Henry is only touched on, and she's Out of Focus for most of the film.
• Values Dissonance: The film essentially glamorises what was really a pervy older man taking advantage of a naive teenage girl. There's also the scene where he hits Bess after she accuses him of being jealous - such a thing would be used to show him as a Jerkass these days.