The Other Boleyn Girl - not to be confused with the book it claims to be based upon. This movie is not even close to a faithful adaptation. I could understand them changing or elaborating on a few things. The book is not perfection, but it was well-written and became very popular. I could understand if the BBC wanted to make this a little more faithful to what actually happened, who Anne Boleyn really was - but it's not even close to being historically accurate either. It's just fluff. Mindless, made-up fluff. A real shame.

To begin with, the writer and director seemed to think it was a good idea to setup the story like it was a reality TV show. Seriously. They have the Boleyns sitting in front of the camera, confessing how they REALLY feel about what's happening in their lives. Anne Boleyn sits in a confessional (not the church kind, the Real World kind) and chooses what she wants to tell and what she wants to just sit and smile about. She looks stupid having to use such a modern cinematic device in a film set in the 1500s. It's "The Real World: Tudor England!" 

Jodhi May is a very good actress and after 'The Aristocrats' and 'A Turn of the Screw' I was becoming a real fan of hers. But she should never have been cast as Anne. Actually I think she would have been a better Mary. Natascha McElhone was a poor choice. She's a good actress, sure, but she has very modern features and does not appear convincing in period costume. (Honestly, I spent the first half of the film trying to figure out if she was "that girl" from 'The Truman Show.' She was.) She's also too old to play the teen-aged Mary so for some unknown reason they made Mary the oldest of the sisters. It makes no sense, I know. It's like the BBC seemed to forget that these people actually lived. They're twisting the story around and making things up left and right. I feel ridiculous having to correct the BBC on historical inaccuracies, but REALLY! 

Apart from the two sisters the rest of the cast was actually very well chosen. Steven Mackintosh struck me as a brilliant choice for George, and his casting was the real reason I decided to seek out this movie. Big mistake. He does a great job, sure, but he's hardly in this. How can anyone pretend they're adapting The Other Boleyn Girl and hardly mention George Boleyn? That's just absurd. Philip Glenister was another very good casting decision, but yet again, was hardly in the finished product. 

The real problem with this is the script. There's just no getting around that. It's bad. It's really, really bad. It's too melodramatic and not engaging. Anne is portrayed as an air-head, Mary as the ringleader, and George as the follower. Mary's first husband is hardly mentioned, her relationship with the king is never explained - they simply do not tell the story Phillippa Gregory wrote. The whole thing comes across as a great big waste. I have no desire to see this thing a second time. I guess I'll just have to read the book again and hope that the Natalie Portman version due out next year will be much better.

*Note: As of this writing, the only way of obtaining this miniseries in the USA is on the last disc of the miniseries 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII.' That's a great miniseries but can cost $50 to $60 and that's way to much to spend if you're just looking for this piece of garbage.

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