Kings and Queens

Rating: 8/10 (12 June 2008)

This movie was so well done and so amazingly cast it left me in total shock and awe! I have read so many terrible reviews about the film, supposedly because the story doesn't follow the book or it wasn't historically accurate. However, it was amazing to me just how accurate it was to actual history. If you look up Anne Boleyn's story you'll find that pretty much everything that she did or went through in the movie really did happen to her during her short life. For example, she really was King Henry's second wife, she really was sent away to live in France for a time, she was not able to bear a son, she was accused of incest and adultery and she was in fact tried for treason and later executed for these supposed crimes. However, they did add some things that weren't historically accurate but that's true of every movie. I still found the movie to be very entertaining even with the added plot. At first I wasn't quite sure if Mary Boleyn even existed because I couldn't find any information on her but from what I've read from other reviews it appears as though she did. That probably would have been too hard to get around if she didn't. In any case it makes the story more real when the people, places and events are all true. It was sad to see how one man took all of the innocence and life from two sisters who once shared such a close, intimate bond. All of the pressure put on them by society and even their own family ultimately cost one sister her life and almost took the other's too. Back then women were treated like cattle or manufacturing machines who, if they didn't produce a male heir, were immediately disposed of just as quickly. It didn't matter if you found favor with the King because eventually you would be replaced by another pretty face eager to do the job. All I can say is props to the women living in the 14th century! Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson were brilliant as the Boleyn sisters. Despite all their plotting and deviousness I was still glad to see that they remained close and were able to forgive each other, right down to the very end. And I loved what Mary said to the King when she was pleading for her sister's life, maybe because I have a little sister of my own. She said, "Because she is my sister, and therefore one half of me." So true! Eric Bana fit his role as the King perfectly. He was all of the things that King Henry VIII really was- a chauvinistic, nymphomaniac, sexist pig. He broke so many hearts and took so many lives along the way and all to his own advancement. Men! All in all, this really is a great movie with phenomenal performances. It keeps you guessing 'til the very end!