The Other Boleyn Girl [12A]

Well, this just goes to show that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The Other Boleyn Girl is a truly awful novel, and even when you throw the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Mark Rylance, David Morrissey and assorted other notables at it, you can’t make it into a great movie. That said, it is a much better movie than it is a book. The Hollywoodization has made the characters more consistent and the plotting much tighter, both of which were huge improvements.

The Mary Boleyn in the book is a frightful whiney nincompoop, but Scarlett Johansson invested her with dignity and integrity and made her appear to be an understandable three-dimensional human being. Would that the same could be said of Anne Boleyn as portrayed by Natalie Portman. Young Natalie is a world-class beauty, but she really can’t act and when you cast her with people who can, it shows.

Visually ravishing, the movie somehow contrived to make sixteenth century interiors look luxurious and fifteenth century dresses beautiful – quite an achievement. Even the movie’s designers couldn’t do much with the male costumes, however; poor Eric Bana struggled in his big skirts and giant puffy sleeves – at times he appeared wider than he was tall, which is not a good look – but at least they managed to avoid the dreaded cod-piece, that destroyer of an audience’s composure. Creditable English accents were sported by all.

The great success of the movie, however, was the actors in supporting roles. David Morrissey was simply magnificent as the scheming, ruthless Duke of Norfolk, and Mark Rylance no less brilliant as the frightened weakling Sir Thomas Boleyn – both of them looked amazing, like Holbein portraits come to life, in fact I’m sure I’ve seen Rylance’s face in a Holbein drawing somewhere. His default expression was one of painful, permanent anxiety – a man always worrying that he is a lesser being and is about to be found out. Kristin Scott-Thomas was stunning as his wife, an ageing beauty full of icy contempt for her husband.

The greatly simplified story followed one of the common themes of Icelandic sagas (lest anyone should think it modern or feminist) – that a man is improved or corrupted by associating himself with a good or a bad woman. Thus Henry is quite kind and decent to the sweet-natured, open-faced Mary, who feels genuine affection for him, but gradually becomes a monster after a few years of being teased past endurance by deceitful, manipulative Anne. Wonderful to see the well-spring of the English Reformation reduced to the king’s attraction to the nice blonde versus the naughty brunette, but that’s Hollywood. And not a bad bit of Hollywood at that. I did wonder, though, why they plumped for a 12A certificate. The story is firmly centred on shagging, giving birth, torture and death, all of which had to be skirted over rather coyly. They would have done better to publish and be damned, like the recent splendid Tudors tv series.

Andrea Hopkins (DI Reviewer), 10/03/08

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Do not waste your money on this movie as you will be disappointed, in particular if you have some historical notion of the characters or if you have read the indigestible novel by Philippa Gregory by the same title.
Why this harsh beginning? Never mind the historical inaccuracies such as when the Boleyn girls actually met King Henry VII; the fact that the latter was already old and obese; in short: 1) the characters have no depth; 2) the two sisters look the same aged 14 or 24; 3) the acting – with the exception of Kristin Scott-Thomas who plays the girls’ mother, is really bad, with Scarlett Johansson (Mary) saying hardly anything at all but sighing here and there, and Natalie Portman (Anne) saying too much without physically expressing Anne Boleyn's well-documented coquetterie, outbursts of rage or seduction skills; 4) the directing is awful, with shots which maybe were aimed at being artistic but just looked like bad shots; 5) the predominant lighting in the movie was too dark - ok - the whole situation needed a sense of darkness (betrayal, passion, intrigues) but really, it did not work - at least for me.
Having said all this, I look forward to reading some different comments on this movie just to see what others might have seen in it that I haven’t. Ah, I almost forgot: the best scene was the ending, just because you knew the movie was over.

lilla (DI User), 10/03/08

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Warmly recommended for a pleasant, colourful but ultimately thought-free scamper through an exciting period in British history. It is, it is had to be said, rather a disadvantate to have either read the book (which is far better) or to know anything about the period, but as long as you are happy to disengage your more critical faculties this is an ultimately very enjoyable film. Portman and Johanssen bicker, squabble and smoulder perfectly capably for 80% of the film and then, in the final quarter as the whole thing spirals into tragedy, put in fine thoughtful performances. Bana shouts, pouts and feasts with abandon and David Morrissey is very satisfactorily evil as Duke of Norfolk. They are however acted off the screen by Kirsten Scott-Thomas who, as Mrs Boleyn, puts in a fine thoughtful performance as a woman fighting (but ultimately failing) to prevent her daughters becoming political and sexual pawns, and Ana Torrent as Catherine of Aragon, who brings depth, gravitas and a pleasing Spanish anger to her ultimate bit-part. These two on their own are worth the admission money.

Bruce wayne (Unverified), 10/03/08

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