I enjoyed the film much more than some of the reviews here because I think it was made for a general audience who would not know who Robert Graves was. It took the breakup of his marriage to emerge from PTSD and becomes a poet devoted to Laura Riding. The sets were amazing and I thought the performances were very good. As a person who has actually read many biographies on Robert Graves, attended the Graves society meetings, and have met his sons (by his 2nd wife) I can say all those events did indeed happen. I suspect Nunez actually watered down some events to make the characters more likeable. That must be the reason there is one child instead of four and Nancy is a bit softer.

Laura by all accounts was off her rocker and a completely polarizing person. I think the film actually waters this down for general audience effect. The most important theme I found interesting (which surprised me by all the accounts on the web and reviews) was that Robert was bisexual. That was not the case. Robert was raised by a puritanical mother and apart from her family was never in the company of women from the time he was five until after the war. He did have a schoolboy crush on a boy which was not physical and thought himself gay . During the War, he was friends with Sassoon, Owen etc. In fact, he fell in love with the nurse tending to him after his wounds and shortly afterwards with Nancy who he quickly married. So in his later years, he called himself a pseudo homosexual which is not a hybrid but rather as "not genuine or a sham" The fact that he married a woman caused a strain with Sassoon who believed Graves was homosexual. There was no record of bisexuality ever in Graves life so it is interesting this reworking of his history as he affairs with his female "Muses" throughout the rest of life is well known.

Back to the film, I think I knew what they were trying to do which was more about the breakup of a family in order to save oneself creatively more than just a telling of a great writer. There could have been more nuanced in the acting especially in the character of Nancy as a feminist who acts braves and makes this pact but slowly cracks as Riding takes over Graves' life and her own. At the end of the film, Graves sets out to write the opening lines of his seminal work Goodbye to All That and make the decision to leave England to pursue a life with Riding.

Overall a good introduction to the life of Graves but please read the biographies to get the full story!,

My Review- The Laureate

My Rating - 4.5 /10

Dull as dishwater a great shame as when I researched Poet Laureate Robert Graves life it's clear to me the screenplay, casting Directing does his character a great disservice.

A movie entirely focused on the sexual peccadilloes of the privileged middle classes needs more interesting characters than these four dull individuals.

The Laureate set in post World War 1 Britain tells only a fraction of the story of young British War Poet Robert Graves who suffers from war neurosis, He is married with four children when he meets with Laura Riding, a writer with minimal talent from America.

Laura Riding gradually becomes a vital member of Robert Graves household and moves in to live with them .

Defying the conventions of polite society, Laura Riding moves in with Graves and his wife living as a menage a tois. Then a young handsome Irish poet Geoffrey Phibbs, enters the circle and the arrangement becomes a menage a quatre.

I think the reason I disliked The Laureate so much apart from disinterest in the characters was the fact that if you didn't know anything about Robert Graves achievements and I didn't the film is just another attempt to sensationalise the sex lives of famous people .

The cast didn't impress me either Tom Hughes as Robert Graves was just sulky and dreary a little as if he was still playing Prince Albert in Victoria perhaps he is just a one dimensional actor?

The description of Robert Graves I read after the film described him as bi-sexual having intense romantic relationships with both men and women, though the word he coined for it was "pseudo-homosexual .

Also that Graves's and Nicholson's marriage was strained, with Graves living with "shell shock "and having an insatiable need for sex, which Nicholson did not reciprocate. Tom Hugh's just didn't fit this description in my opinion .

Laura Haddock as Nancy Nicholson was even duller as the wife of Robert Graves . I read that Nancy Nicholson his wife, was an ardent feminist she kept her hair short, wore trousers, and had "boyish directness and youth." Her feminism never conflicted with Graves's own ideas of female superiority.

Laura Haddock has short hair but far too fragile I just couldn't imagine her as a strong character at all.

Dianna Agron as the interloper Laura Riding and the tios in this ménage gives a vampish spirited performance which seems out of synch with these 2 dull people.

The quartre in the ménage is Geoffrey Phibbs played by Irish actor Fra Fee .

In reality the relationship then revolved around the worship and reverence of Laura Riding. Graves and Phibbs were both sleeping with Laura Riding who first seduces the wife then later rejects her saying she's only interested in men then proceeds to mentally unravel after young Geoffrey transfers his affections to Nancy Nicholson.

I don't recommend this dull and uninteresting film it just bored me.

The full story of Robert Graves is almost unbelievable and worth a film being made about it. This is not it. Maybe a TV series might have been the answer as they seem to have tried to get a quart into a pint pot.

Agron is not mad enough to play Riding and Haddock playing Nicholson comes off as being g sappy instead of the feisty feminist she was.

As a result none of the drama comes off as being credible a d we are left with an interesting story, but that's all.