Leave your history books at home; then maybe you'll enjoy it

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2008)

In fiction and history alike, it's Anne Boleyn who gets Henry VIII & thus commands most of our attention. Philippa Gregory wanted to examine Mary's history, though her novel plays fast & loose with the facts of Anne Boleyn's ascendancy at Henry VIII's court. It's a decent enough yarn, but ends up serving Mary poorly. She comes off in both book and film as a passive woman whose family treat her horribly but, weak & pliable, she's always there to help no matter what they've done to her. As Mary's character is at the heart of Gregory's story, her passivity doesn't rouse much sympathy for herself or the film. Mary was, in fact, more adventurous than Anne--mistress of the French King Francis I in her youth at his court, & sent home for loose morals. Back in England around 1520, Mary attracted Henry VIII who, to camouflage their affair & likely to cover up her first pregnancy by him, set up her marriage to a gentleman of his chamber. Henry probably fathered both children Mary bore while married & she may have continued to service him while Anne was playing the virtuous virgin. After Henry married Anne, Mary met William Stafford, became pregnant & married him in 1533/34. She was exiled from court & never saw Anne again. There's plenty of spice there but Gregory's curious failure to address it--especially Mary's early experiences at the French court--leaves this side of Mary's character in darkness. The film, alas, does likewise. That said, the film is a sumptuous delight for eye & ear even if the writing is stilted and the acting uneven. Eric Bana's Henry is badly served by a poor script &/or lousy editing. (Comparison to "The Tudors" is unfair; a theatrical film does does not have as much time as a TV miniseries for detailed character development.) As written & acted, Johansson's Mary is too passive, almost naive, to impress. The film really belongs to two characters. Kristin Scott Thomas, as the troubled Lady Boleyn, comments from the margins of the social fabric on the forces at play in the Boleyns' story. Of the film's performances, Scott's is the most likely to be remembered at awards time. Natalie Portman's Anne resents Mary's unexpected success with Henry, childishly tries to steal the spotlight with a secret marriage to Henry Percy, then uses all her wiles to take the king from Mary. Portman handles this with ease & assurance, and compellingly portrays Anne's despair as she finds she has cost Henry too much: he realizes the prize was not worth the chase. Indeed the strength of Portman's portrayal only further subverts the supposedly central role of Mary Boleyn and wrests control of the narrative from Johansson's character. Gregory's novel was clear that Mary was to be considered the "other" Boleyn girl, but by allowing Anne to upstage Mary completely--or rather by having Mary allow Anne to do so--the film at least introduces a challenging ambiguity as to which sister really was, or should be regarded as, the "other." That ambiguity is, however, the only really challenging aspect of the whole production.