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Plot: Two sisters contend for the affection of King Henry VIII.
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The Other Boleyn Girl Recent Reviews
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:September 18, 2008
Wow! The story is very captivating. Supported with great actings from Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johannsen, but still couldn't save the movie's terrible quality.
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MCT:September 14, 2008I can't believe what people were willing to go through to be royalty. It was a pretty disturbing and sad movie overall. I no longer wish I lived in that time period!
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MCT:September 8, 2008INTERESTED
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MCT:August 31, 2008
Natalie Portman was really good and I also liked Scarlett in her role. Makes me so glad I didn't live back in those days though!
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MCT:August 22, 2008"Allowing men to believe they are in charge, that is the art of being a woman."
Based on a novel (by Philippa Gregory) built on historical fact, The Other Boleyn Girl is more overwrought soap opera than serious costume drama, but nobody involved in making the film seems to understand this. With murder, adultery, excommunication, stillbirths, incest, beheadings and some truly astonishing headgear all playing large roles, this film should be, if nothing else, campy, giggly fun, despite its less-than-happy foregone conclusion. Think Cruel Intentions in period costume, or better yet, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which managed to take its subject matter lightly and seriously at the same time. Instead, it's one and only one thing: ridiculous.
It's a scattershot drama of cloak-and-dagger plotting, romance and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in British history. Against the wishes of his wife Lady Elizabeth (Kristin Scott Thomas), Sir Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance) and his brother-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey), impress their ambitions for familial advancement on the Boleyn's two daughters. Knowing that the aging Queen Catherine of Aragon (Ana Torrent) has again recently failed to give King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) a male heir, Sir Thomas and Norfolk contrive to attempt to have first Anne (Natalie Portman), then younger Mary (Scarlett Johansson) - and then Anne again - seduce the king, no matter that Mary is already wed. Initially Mary wins King Henry's favour, and bears him an illegitimate son. But Anne, clever, conniving and fearless, eventually jumps into the pursuit.
Like a made-for-TV, two-hour history of World War II, The Other Boleyn Girl doesn't have a clear sense of how to collapse its narrative (ignoring, for instance, the matter of Catherine being first married to Henry's deceased brother). And it certainly doesn't plumb the psychology of such a complex and fascinating figure as Anne Boleyn or its other characters in any lasting or insightful way. In TV ads for the film, two lines appeared ("We're sisters," says Mary, followed by Anne's response, "And therefore born to be rivals") that would seem integral to the main relationship under the microscope. And yet that exchange doesn't appear in the film, and Mary and Anne vacillate between games and favours in arbitrary fashion, at least based on what we see on screen.
It's nothing but a derivative, dull, tedious waste of time, money and talent. It provides none of the passion, none of the political intrigue we've come to expect from such veiled period pieces (and that was so present in Showtime's "The Tudors"), and re-emphasizes a single point - Anne's jealousy of Mary - more times than is humanly necessary. Though Gregory's novel, vaguely feminist, is well considered, and the script was penned by none other than Peter Morgan, something about Justin Chadwick's pedestrian direction undermines any drama either inherent or manufactured. Clearly captivated by the stars he's hired, he sets them adrift inside a lot of fake pomp and quite a few unbelievable circumstances. Chadwick's television experience evidences itself, in both the best and, more frequently, worst, most constrictive senses of that description.
As Henry VIII, Eric Bana - already too in-shape to play the fat, in-poor-health king, who would die less than a dozen years after the events depicted here - is required to do ridiculous things. There's no sense of independent thought with him, let alone the authoritativeness, capriciousness or vindictiveness associated with King Henry's later years. He seems to exist merely to pull levers of power as directed by Anne, and to a lesser extent Mary. While it's true that the relationship between the Boleyn sisters is extremely interesting (although the general consensus among historians is that they weren't close at all) the lack of insight into King Henry is such that it makes for a rather severe isosceles triangle, and is a disservice to the entire story.
As for the sisters, the thought of seeing Natalie and Scarlett together thrilled me as much as the next guy, but here's the problem: Portman, while as classically beautiful as possible, is simply unable to heave her breasts over her bodice to become the irresistible, explosive sexual magnet Anne is made out to be (and who Natalie Dormer played to perfection in "The Tudors"). She looks like a kid playing dress-up. Maybe the curvier Johansson would have fared better in the role, though it's hard to tell; she's so mild and forgiving here she practically disappears from the screen. Neither one appears capable of pulling off this sort of period drama.
Amid all this regrettable casting stands Kristin Scott Thomas as the girls' mother, the only person appalled by her husband's trafficking in sex and ambition. Even in hideous costume she demands more attention than either of the younger women, and one can only hope they picked up a pointer or two on the set about dignity and subtlety in a performance. Jim Sturgess - also free of the accent-faking burden - turns in a pretty decent performance too, as George Boleyn, and David Morrissey - a very underrated British actor - is very uncomfortably creepy as Norfolk. The bottom line here is pretty ancient: DON'T cast American or Australian actors (no matter how good they may be) to play British characters. It simply doesn't work. At least for those who know what the English spoken in Britain really sounds like.
As for the always debated "historical accuracy," England's tumultuous break with the Roman Catholic Church - and the consequent English Reformation - is dispensed with in a few sentences, important, essential figures (such as Sir Thomas More and Thomas Wyatt) are completely left out, and Chadwick/Morgan wait for the last 20 minutes (of a 2-hour film) to spit out the little worthy information it has in its pages, and many other butcheries are committed by director, writer and producers. The argument to this, I know, is that the film "doesn't pretend to be anything other than fiction," that "it's just a film, not a history lesson."
My question is: (and pardon my language) why the fuck would anyone want to make or watch a period film, other than an interest in History? And with that in mind, was it really that hard to pick up a book (or even type 'Wikipedia') to find out what - and how - life truly happened to these people? The problem with claiming it to be "fiction" is that this sort of film (that features people who really existed and who changed countries and continents) will always function as a history lesson to some people, people who won't be aware that what they're watching isn't really how, why or where things happened. In the end, you're choosing to use History as cheap and meaningless entertainment and wasting a perfectly good chance to educate people.
There's still is a valuable lesson here, though. One for authors of historical fiction. The literary market may be shrinking in comparison to other forms of entertainment, but if you write it, Hollywood will still come knocking, because, in a country whose majority of citizens get their world history knowledge from "movies" (and who think that Maximus actually battled Marcus Aurelius in an arena or that Pocahontas was a smoking hot 17-year-old with the body of porn star), there will presumably always be a market of adults who want to catch up on, in quick-bite fashion, the history lessons they slept or passed notes through during their younger years.
My advice, for all those who like to take anything real and worthy from a film and who have some interest in period dramas and true knowledge, is to skip this, at least until you've seen Fred Zinnemann's A Man for All Seasons and "The Tudors". 'Cause seriously, a single one of its twenty 50-minute episodes has more value than forty The Other Boleyn Girls. -
MCT:December 4, 2008
Gosto do estilo do filme, principalmente por se tratar da vida da Realeza. Natalie Portman e Scarlett Johansson estão perfeitas. O cenário maravilhoso (adoro os castelos medievais).
Comments
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anitahuang825posted 95 days ago -
the film was ok. have read the book and expected the film to be fabulous as well. It was alright,however the book is much better.
posted 140 days ago -
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WOW I almost cried at how much it was bas compared to the book. THE BOOK WAS AMAZING, bu this? This was a joke.
posted 147 days ago -
i enjoyed the film a lot, the book is obviously better but if you just look at the film as a seperate thingyou can see how amzing it is.
posted 156 days ago -
it totally ruined the story!! especially since i read the book i was expecting more. i personally think the movie was too short. the freaking book was bigger than a harry potter book!
posted 210 days ago -
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ok so this really has nothing to do with the acutal move. But it does have something to do with the theme. (if you are reading this pease dont stop and help andswer my question it is of high importance) so here it is:
Do any of you know how and or where to get clips of music that was listened to durring the time that anne boleyn really lived? You know queen elizabeth and king henry the eighth!!! Please i need this for an assignment which sucks!! anything will help im having no luck. this is a last resort!! thanks lots of love
&heart Jennposted 260 days ago -
Christinewannabe47 - This isn't actually a series, Gregory wrote The Other Boylen Girl well before any of her other Tudor books. Her series is called Wideacre. Although I've yet to read Wideacre, i have read all her Tudor books, and her one on slave trading, and they are all fabulous.
Personally I think the movie ruined the book. It completely misrepresented the relationships between ALL characters, left out countless important plot points, and just well sucked. Plus it totally missed the point that Mary is The Other Boleyn Girl! It made out Anne was. We've always known about Anne Mary's the forgotten Boleyn Girl, We even know more about Little Kitty Howard, and Mary's daughter with Henry (who was by the way not included in the movie) then we do about Mary herself... So how could they misinterpret that Mary was the other Boleyn Girl? And they ruined George who i adored!posted 265 days ago -
ruined one of my favourite books and favourite historical character. Eric bana and scarlett were barely trying and her acting was not brilliant.
Natalie Portman was very good tho.
READ THE BOOK!posted 268 days ago
