But it is very pretty to watch...

Rating: 5/10 (2 March 2008)

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL suffers from overexposure to the passion for all things Tudor that has produced multiple novels, television series, and films that range from great to mediocre. Having not read Philippa Gregory's best selling novel, this viewer entered the theater without preconceived notions of the path the story would take/stray in the wake of heightened interest in historical data. From the opening scenes to the end the impression is one of having viewed some very beautiful scenery, sumptuous costumes, grand lighting - and very little involvement in caring for the plight of the characters. The soggy music score underlines the unrelenting dark atmosphere of the story and the production, and despite a cast of actors known for credibility in historic roles, there is little compassion stirred.
King Henry VIII (Eric Bana, in relatively little screen time) tires of Katherine of Aragon (Ana Torent) and her inability to bear a male heir. The Boleyn clan (Mark Rylance and Kristin Scott Thomas in collusion with the Duke of Norfolk David Morrissey) seize on Henry's frustration and serve up their daughters Anne (Natalie Portman) and Mary (Scarlett Johansson) to satisfy his dalliances. The younger Mary beds him first, produces a daughter (Elizabeth), then falls our of favor leaving Anne to works her newly honed skills of feminism learned in her exile to France on the easily seduced King. The results are tension in the castle, in the Boleyn family, and between the sisters Anne and Mary. History is molded by the writer to maintain more of a Hollywood soap opera that a recreation of fact and it all ends with beheadings and the child Elizabeth running gaily through sunny old meadows of England.
The actors all try to make us buy into this version of betrayal and lust and loathing, but the dialog (written by Peter Morgan) is tired and used and anything but in keeping with the period. But then, the movie is a collection of scenes that are very pretty to watch... Justin Chadwick directs. Grady Harp