Powerful Costume Drama

Rating: 7/10 (9 February 2009)

The story of the six wives of Henry the Eigth is a staple of British history. Director Justin Chaswick , who cut his teeth on period drama with a TV production of "Bleak House", makes an excellent job of converting Phillipa Gregory's novel, in which she picks out the Boleyn girls contribution, onto the Big screen. Much of the credit for this goes to Peter Morgan whose fine screenplay confirms his status of one of the best writers of screen dialogue around at the moment.Whilst historically inaccurate in some key respects, the context is enough to provide a convincing and rewarding "faction".
Two hours of intrigue, treachery, plotting and heartbreak focus on the efforts of the Boleyn family to do a spot of social climbing courtesy of their daughters Anne and Mary. Natalie Portman as the former, leaves Scarlett Johansson as the latter somewhat in her wake in a towering performance of froideur and ambition. Eric Bana as King Henry is absolutely convincing is his arrogant amorality, yet still allows the side of him which can be manipulated by women to shine through.
Lavish, whilst falling short of being a full blown costume drama, the story depends upon plot , rather than action, and succeeds triumphantly. The below par CGI recreations of Medieval Cityscapes are more than compensated for by a rip roaring pace to a cleverly paced tale. My only criticism is that the cerebral battle between Henry and his wife Catherine, and the visceral passion of his relationships with Anne and Mary are somewhat under drawn, presumably to give it as wide an audience as possible with a 12A rating.
However the ingredients of a King, mistresses, a scheming Court and razor sharp dialogue deliver an impressive result, which I can recommend to all.