THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (Justin Chadwick, 2008) ***

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2008)

Having studied European History in Secondary School, I've always been fascinated by the reign of England's King Henry VIII  a period less noted for chivalrous deeds than bed-hopping antics, as he married no less than six times in order to secure a male heir to the throne (even if this caused a rift between the country and the Roman Catholic Church which endures to this very day). Unsurprisingly, all of this has made him ideal film material  personally, I've watched THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1933), THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER (1937), THE SWORD AND THE ROSE (1953), YOUNG BESS (1953), A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (both 1966 big-screen and 1988 TV versions), ANNE OF A THOUSAND DAYS (1969) and, of course, CARRY ON HENRY (1971); I recently acquired HENRY VIII AND HIS SIX WIVES (1972), which was adapted from a much longer TV series, but have yet to check it out.
This, then, gives a 'novel' twist to the most turbulent period in Henry's life and reign  as we discover that, before making Anne Boleyn his Queen (whose offspring was Elizabeth I), he had been involved with her younger sister (who had actually borne him a son)!; incidentally, these events  based on a novel by Philippa Gregory  had already been adapted for the small screen in 2003but someone thought that this little-known romance was intriguing enough to make it into a feature film. As it stands, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL is a sumptuous-looking production  despite being mostly restricted to interiors, and where the color scheme is actually quite subtle; for this reason, much depends on the acting  and the three leads (Natalie Portman as Anne, Scarlett Johannson as the titular figure and Eric Bana as Henry) are all given the opportunity to shine, thus overcoming their basic youthfulness for the roles. Two other notables in the cast are Kristin Scott-Thomas as the two Boleyn sisters' mother and Ana Torrent (still best-known for playing the little girl in THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE [1973]) as the barren and jealous Queen Katharine.
Even so, the plot (which, reportedly, doesn't play fair with history) defies credibility at times and tends too often towards melodrama. For one thing, Henry is depicted as something of a pawn in the machinations of an over-ambitious family; he's also gullible (it's Anne who pushes him into breaking with Rome!) and, least convincingly of all, is the fact that everything seems to happen simply because she refuses to sleep with the King before he makes her Queen (which then leads to a potentially campy scene in which Henry rapes Anne)! The less said, then, of the Queen's attempt to entice her fey brother into impregnating her (soon after she loses Henry's second child)  and how this is what ultimately led to Anne's execution!  the better; incidentally, the film rather rushes through her tenure as sovereign (despite the title, she's the real protagonist)  while the pivotal character of Sir Thomas More (the subject of A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS) doesn't figure at all in Church-rupture affair! That said, such narrative shortcomings don't really impinge on one's enjoyment of the film  hence the respectable rating accorded it.
At the end of the day, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL won't dispel memories of the better cinematic versions of Henry VIII's reign and (some of his) loves  but it's nonetheless valuable as much for shedding light on an episode which had previously been all but overlooked as for its atypically frank detail of life at court.