A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Other Boleyn Girl

Date Viewed: 3/5/08

Details:

Natalie Portman (Anne Boleyn)

Scarlett Johansson (Mary Boleyn)

Eric Bana (Henry Tudor)

Jim Sturgess

Mark Rylance

Kristin Scott Thomas

David Morrissey

Ana Torrent

Director: Justin Chadwick

Score: +

The Review: The other Boleyn girl ... is Anne.

For those whose knowledge of English history and royal families is narrowly circumscribed by Anne of a Thousand Days, A Man for All Seasons, or the 1970's PBS series of The Six Wives of Henry VIII, this movie is for you. It is a retelling of the end of Henry VIII's (Bana) first marriage to Katherine of Aragon (Torrent), catalyzed by his royal infatuation with Anne Boleyn (Portman), and subsequent unpleasant events. This version of the story is complicated by the presence of her sister, Mary (Johansson), and goes into details that I personally do not remember from earlier dramas. The point-of-view is clearly from within the Boleyn family -- with Kristin Scott Thomas as the irascible and sympathetic mother fighting, perhaps anachronistically, for the rights of her daughters as individuals against the machinations of the male lineage. Much emphasis is placed on the duty of the daughters to marry well and/or gain the king's favor, thus advancing the status and stature of the House of Boleyn.

The Boleyn girls are drawn well -- young, attractive, head-strong and not terribly pliant (in the case of Anne).

As for Henry, this is not (yet) the Holbein Henry, but Eric Bana is still quite a bit younger and robust than Henry would have been at the time of Anne (1535). After all, he'd been married to Katherine of Aragon for some 26 years by then, and was no longer a spring chicken (sorry, rooster -- he was aged 44). But Bana offers a good, reasonably-balanced portrait of the archetypal Henry: busy with affairs of state (and of the heart), physically active, lusty, self-centered, with a rousing temper -- not necessarily my ideal monarch, but an interesting character. There's no indication of his intelligence, nor of his (past) religious fervor (activities that named him Defender of the Faith by the Pope himself, long before the Church of Henry split with Rome).

Derived from the popular novel by Philippa Gregory, which has since engendered several follow-ups.

(23-Mar-08)

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