The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

The Other Boleyn Girl is an adaptation of the infamous story of Henry VIII (I am, I am), his betrayal of Catherine of Eragon, and love affairs with Mary and Anne Boleyn. Unfortunately the plot itself is the best part of this movie and that is history, not screenwriting.

Natalie Portman plays Anne Boleyn, an ambitious, catty, and conniving daughter of a desperate man. Her sister Mary is played by Scarlett Johansson, a more innocent, better looking, and simple woman who unfortunately catches the King’s (Eric Bana) interest first. Her highly ambitious family, particularly her father played by Mark Rylance and the Duke of Norfolk played by David Morrissey (quite well actually), decides that she must become mistress to the King and bear him a son in order to lift their family into the good graces of the court. Unfortunately, Anne Boleyn is not happy about this, is exiled to France, and comes back with loads of knowledge regarding the art of backstabbing. She finds her sister nearly ready to give birth to Henry’s heir, and seduces him before the baby arrives.

That’s about a quarter to halfway through the movie. The rest of the movie is spent showing Anne Boleyn trying to get pregnant, a family scheming the sexual use of their daughters in such a way that would make the Womynist froth at the mouth, and a King who can’t decide who to get it on with next. Culminating, of course, in Anne asking her brother to have sex with her after losing the King’s child and their subsequent beheadings.

In the end I thought that Anne Boleyn got what was coming to her. I felt bad for Mary Boleyn due to the betrayals of both the King and her sister. And I felt bad for her brother George (played by Jim Sturgess from Across the Universe), who stood with his sisters the whole time, was asked to do something unthinkable, did not do it, and still lost his head. But then, I knew I would feel this way about them because again, this is history. Somewhat.

I’ll just say it like it is: the movie dragged on. To me it was more like a soap opera than a movie, and seemed to go from scene to scene without resolving or doing much. Each scene felt very predictable, and the passage of time was shown rather badly; years go by between some scenes, yet the characters do not develop at all. Intuition of course tells us that a baby takes months to be born, not minutes, yet the movie makes us feel like it was a one day affair instead of depicting the transition properly.

As a soap opera it was outstanding. As an epic it falls short tremendously. As far as historical movies go it was fair, but mostly because the plotline is a no-brainer: sex, lies, beheadings. How can one go wrong?