Picking a fractal for today‘s review of The Other Boleyn Girl was harder than it seemed. I’ve already used most of my of “royal” images (A Regal Image, Corona) so I needed to move somewhere else. Thus I chose Crown of Stars 26. I thought the colors were suitably rich and the shapes wonderfully baroque. The “crown” conjures images of royalty and there were several real “stars” in the movie. So--on with the review!-
It was inevitable that the story of Henry VIII would be brought to the screen: after all the guy had six wives, hordes of mistresses and had a history of changing friends as often as his mood changed (then offing the former close friends on trumped-up charges). This sex and blood-soaked saga was ripe for visual exploitation. Showtime went graphic their series The Tudors. The Other Boleyn Girl chose to go a more “tasteful” route The “PG-13” Rating insures the watching isn’t going to see anything disturbing.
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There’s really no need to rehash the story here: if you don’t know it you can probably look it up easily enough. Suffice it to say that the story is told mainly from the point of view of the Boleyn family. In this story the fact that men trade their daughters for political advancements seems to be the driving force. The Duke of Norfolk (played by David Morrissey) schemes to place his niece Anne (Natalie Portman) as King Henry’s (Eric Bana) latest mistress--but it is Mary (Scarlet Johansen) who catches his eye. This sets up a competition between the once-loving sisters which leads to the inevitable tragic conclusion.
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The Actors playing the Boleyn family all fare pretty well with the exception of Kristin Scott Thomas as the girl's long-suffering mothere (who only gets to complain about the sorry lot of the state of women.) Eric Bana doesn’t leave much of an impression as the king--but he wears the clothes well and has nice abs. (I don’t know if that’s because he really can’t act or simply because he’s not given much to do in this role.) The movie is beautifully shot and the historical costumes are lovely to look at. Personally, I had some trouble with the pace of the movie--at lot of if went way too slow for me but there were a few places where the action would skip ahead by months with nary a word--just BOOM! Still, the action is easy-enough to follow--even if the viewer doesn’t know the history. (I know at least some of the history though and I often found myself wishing for more details.) The movie tries to skew younger with the cast and story but it’s just not sexy enough to appeal to the under 40 crowd. It will do well at the Oscars in the costume and maybe makeup categories but I doubt you’ll see it anywhere else.
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I could recommend The Other Boleyn Girl for fans of historical and romance films. If you want a little more action in your history you might try looking for The Tudors.
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FINAL GRADE: B-
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