The Other Boleyn Girl
March 13, 2008
Screenwriter Peter Morgan is no stranger to royal scripts, earning an Oscar nomination for writing “The Queen” (starring Helen Mirren) and also penning the Emmy-winning “Henry VIII,” so he was the go-to guy when it came to adapting “The Other Boleyn Girl,” a Tudor-era drama from the bestselling book of the same name, written by Phillipa Gregory, for the big screen.
Though it must have been difficult to cram the contents of a nearly 700-page book into a single two-hour movie, it seems that not enough attention was paid to certain historical events, such as King Henry VIII’s split from the Catholic Church, which is only given one brief scene. The overall sense is that many important details were left on the pages of the book.
The main drive of the plot is the rivalry between Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) and her sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) as they battle for the affection of King Henry VIII (Eric Bana). When the rumor spreads that Henry’s Queen Katherine cannot bear him the son he desires, their father Thomas Boleyn and their scheming uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, devise a plan to make one of the sisters his mistress in order to provide him with a male heir.
The King briefly falls for Mary, but Anne is not about to step aside and uses manipulation to convince Henry to both send Mary back to the country with his illegitimate child and annul the marriage with his wife Katherine, in order for her to become the Queen of England.
Most people are familiar with the beheading of Anne Boleyn, but this film offers more insight into how and why it happened, assuming that the details of the historical characters and events have not been changed too much in order to fit the dramatic narrative.
Out of the three leads, Portman certainly gives the most powerful performance. She plays her character in a way in which the viewer does not know whether to hate her or feel sorry for her. She is certainly a devious character, but seems to be a product of her scheming family. Johansson, on the other hand, plays the good girl, and as a result, she does not have very many interesting scenes, or at least scenes that are only half as interesting as Portman’s.
Eric Bana does a decent job of playing Henry VIII. Well, he looks good at least. He does not have very much to work with, and throughout most of the film just stomps his feet and walks angrily throughout the castle corridors. He’s a selfish and unlikable guy, but it’s appropriate to the character.
The supporting actors do well, also, including Jim Sturgess (“Across the Universe”), who plays Anne and Mary’s brother George, and who has a delicate and heartbreaking scene when he tells Anne he cannot help her conceive a child, and the usually efficient Kristin Scott Thomas (who plays the Boleyn mother, Lady Elizabeth).
None of the characters stumbled over the dialogue, which sounds too modern too often, and is not the Victorian, hard-to-understand style that one would expect in a picture about this time period. Maybe that’s a good thing however, as it kept the film simple enough to follow without questioning what the characters said or meant.
The film is directed by British TV veteran Justin Chadwick, and is full of too-quick cuts and jerks throughout. He has gotten adequate work out of his cast, but only that.
The film is full of rich costumes by two-time Oscar-winner Sandy Powell, and excellent production design by John-Paul Kelly. But these are not enough to save the film, which lacks in storytelling just when the plot begins to thicken and become dark. By the time Mary says, “I’ve seen enough” in this playing-with-facts movie, so has the audience.
