The Other Boleyn Girl (2008 film)

The Other Boleyn Girl is a 2008 historical romantic drama film directed by Justin Chadwick. The screenplay by Peter Morgan was adapted from Philippa Gregory’s 2001 novel of the same name.
It is a fictionalised account of the lives of 16th-century English aristocrats Mary Boleyn, mistress of King Henry VIII, and her sister, Anne, who became the monarch's ill-fated second wife.
The film was released on February 29th, 2008.
Henry VIII of England's marriage to his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon, has not produced a male heir. Their only surviving child is Princess Mary, whom Henry fears cannot successfully rule. Lady Mary Boleyn weds Sir William Carey, one of Henry's courtiers.
Mary's maternal uncle, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, plot to install her older sister, Anne, as Henry's mistress to improve the family's status. Anne is promised an eventual marriage to a high-born nobleman. Anne accepts.
When Henry is injured in a hunting accident, he becomes smitten with Mary, who tends to his wounds. This grants the Boleyns a prominent place at court. Mary and Anne become ladies-in-waiting to Queen Catherine while William Carey is sent abroad as an ambassador.
The King seduces Mary, who becomes his mistress.. Anne secretly marries her lover Henry Percy, a nobleman betrothed to Lady Mary Talbot. When her brother, George, learns about the marriage, he informs Mary. Matrimony among nobles must first be approved by the king. To protect Anne, Mary alerts their father and uncle, who have the union annulled. Anne is sent to France to learn court manners.
When Mary becomes pregnant with Henry's child, Sir Thomas leverages this to obtain lands and positions for himself and his family. George is unhappily betrothed to Lady Jane Parker. When Mary is confined to bedrest during her pregnancy, Norfolk recalls Anne to distract Henry from seeking another mistress.
Resentful that Henry initially preferred her sister, Anne beguiles him by refusing his advances. Mary gives birth to her and Henry's son, but Anne diverts his attention. This irritate Norfolk until Anne reveals her ambitions to be queen and produce a legitimate male heir. She continues refusing Henry's advances, promising to accept if he stops bedding Catherine and speaking to Mary. Shortly afterwards, Mary and her child are exiled to the countryside with the returning Carey, who soon dies of illness.
Anne pressures Henry to break from the Catholic Church when Pope Clement VII refuses to allow him to divorce Catherine. Henry learns rumors of Anne's marriage to Percy; Mary is returned to court but assures him the rumors are false. She stays at Anne's urging.
Henry declares himself Supreme Head of the "Church of England", grants his own divorce, and banishes Catherine to her native Spain. When Anne refuses to consummate their relationship before they are legally married, he, overcome with rage and lust, rapes her. Despite being deeply traumatized, the now pregnant Anne marries Henry and is crowned England's new queen consort.
Anne gives birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Henry, disappointed he still has no male heir, secretly courts Jane Seymour. Anne is deeply hated by the English people, and she develops paranoia as her marriage collapses.
After miscarrying a son, Anne fears for her life and begs George to impregnate her. He agrees but cannot go through with it. Unbeknownst to them, his spying wife Jane reports her suspicions to Norfolk and the King. Anne and George are both arrested on charges of incest, adultery and high treason.
Despite a lack of evidence, both are hastily convicted and sentenced to death. Mary begs Henry to spare Anne, and he seemingly agrees out of kindness toward her. The sisters reconcile, and Anne requests that Mary raise Elizabeth as her own.
Mary receives a secret letter from Henry, instructing her not to return to court. Despite Henry's earlier promise, Anne is executed so he can lawfully marry Jane Seymour. Mary watches in despair as Anne is beheaded.
Sir Thomas died two years after the executions; Norfolk was later disgraced and imprisoned, and the next three generations of the Howard family were executed for treason; Mary remarried to William Stafford and spent the remainder of her life living in the country; Elizabeth went on to rule England for over forty years as Queen Elizabeth I.
Much of the filming took place in Kent, England, though Hever Castle was not used, despite being the original household of Thomas Boleyn and family from 1505 to 1539. The Baron's Hall at Penshurst Place featured, as did Dover Castle, which stood in for the Tower of London in the film, and Knole House in Sevenoaks was used in several scenes. The home of the Boleyns was represented by Great Chalfield Manor in Wiltshire, and other scenes were filmed at locations in Derbyshire, including Cave Dale, Haddon Hall, Dovedale and North Lees Hall near Hathersage.
Dover Castle was transformed into the Tower of London for the execution scenes of George and Anne Boleyn. Knole House was the setting for many of the film's London night scenes and the inner courtyard doubles for the entrance of Whitehall Palace where the grand arrivals and departures were staged. The Tudor Gardens and Baron's Hall at Penshurst Place were transformed into the interiors of Whitehall Palace, including the scenes of Henry's extravagant feast.
Historian Alex von Tunzelmann criticised The Other Boleyn Girl for its portrayal of the Boleyn family and Henry VIII, citing factual errors. She stated, "In real life, by the time Mary Boleyn started her affair with Henry, she had already enjoyed a passionate liaison with his great rival, King François I of France. Rather ungallantly, François called her 'my hackney', explaining that she was fun to ride. Chucked out of France by his irritated wife, Mary sashayed back to England and casually notched up her second kingly conquest. The film's portrayal of this Boleyn girl as a shy, blushing damsel could hardly be further from the truth." She further criticised the depiction of Anne as a "manipulative vixen" and Henry as "nothing more than a gullible sex addict in wacky shoulder pads". The film presents other historical inaccuracies, such as the statement by a character that, through marrying Henry Percy, Anne Boleyn would become Duchess of Northumberland, a title that was only created in the reign of Henry's son, Edward VI. Also, it places Anne's time in the French court after her involvement with Percy, something that occurred before the affair. On top of that, Anne was portrayed inaccurately as the older sister in the movie, in real life she was Mary's younger sister. In the film, Thomas Boleyn stated Anne was in France for a couple of months. In real life, Anne was in France for seven years.
The film was first released in theatres on February 29, 2008, though its world premiere took place at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival held February 7–17, 2008. The film earned $9,442,224 in the United Kingdom, and $26,814,957 in the United States and Canada. The combined worldwide gross of the film was $75,598,644, more than double the film's $35 million budget.
The film was released in Blu-ray and DVD formats on June 10, 2008. Extras on both editions include an audio commentary with director Justin Chadwick, deleted and extended scenes, character profiles, and featurettes. The Blu-ray version includes BD-Live capability and an additional picture-in-picture track with character descriptions, notes on the original story, and passages from the original book.
The film received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 43%, based on 148 reviews, with a weighted average of 5.30/10. The site's general consensus is: "Though it features some extravagant and entertaining moments, The Other Boleyn Girl feels more like a soap opera than historical drama." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 50 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film "more slog than romp" and an "oddly plotted and frantically paced pastiche." She added, "The film is both underwritten and overedited. Many of the scenes seem to have been whittled down to the nub, which at times turns it into a succession of wordless gestures and poses. Given the generally risible dialogue, this isn’t a bad thing."
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "This in an enjoyable movie with an entertaining angle on a hard-to-resist period of history ... Portman's performance, which shows a range and depth unlike anything she's done before, is the No. 1 element that tips The Other Boleyn Girl in the direction of a recommendation ... [She] won't get the credit she deserves for this, simply because the movie isn't substantial enough to warrant proper attention."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone stated, "The film moves in frustrating herks and jerks. What works is the combustible teaming of Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, who give the Boleyn hotties a tough core of intelligence and wit, swinging the film's sixteenth-century protofeminist issues handily into this one."
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian awarded the film three out of five stars, describing it as a "flashy, silly, undeniably entertaining Tudor romp" and adding, "It is absurd yet enjoyable, and playing fast and loose with English history is a refreshing alternative to slow and tight solemnity; the effect is genial, even mildly subversive ... It is ridiculous, but imagined with humour and gusto: a very diverting gallop through the heritage landscape."
Sukhdev Sandhu of The Telegraph said, "This is a film for people who prefer their costume dramas to gallop along at a merry old pace rather than get bogged down in historical detail ... Mining relatively familiar material here, and dramatising highly dubious scenarios, [Peter Morgan] is unable to make the set-pieces seem revelatory or tart ... In the end, The Other Boleyn Girl is more anodyne than it has any right to be. It can't decide whether to be serious or comic. It promises an erotic charge that it never carries off, inducing dismissive laughs from the audience for its soft-focus love scenes soundtracked by swooning violins. It is tasteful but unappetising."
Production studio BBC Films also owns the rights to adapt the 2006 sequel novel, The Boleyn Inheritance, which tells the story of Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Jane Parker.