Directed by: Justin Chadwick
Premise: Dramatization of the love triangle between
Mary (Scarlett Johansson) and Anne (Natalie Portman) Boleyn and King Henry VIII
(Eric Bana).
What Works: The Other Boleyn Girl retells a
familiar story, with more focus on the female characters and how they interact
within the male dominated power structure. The take works and the film allows
the characters of Mary and Anne and their mother Lady Elizabeth (Kristin Scott
Thomas) some interesting discussions and drama in which the family is corrupted
by ambition. The scenes between the three of them are very real and grounded
enough in the familial tensions to not get lost in the larger political game
being played. Portman is especially good in the film and gives one of the best
performances of her career.
What Doesn’t: The film starts out very slow and
takes time getting going. In the second half, the whole picture shifts gears and
improves dramatically but it’s a little too aimless to begin. Although Portman
and Johansson give strong performances, two roles are critically miscast and
underwritten: Eric Bana as King Henry and Ana Torrent as his wife, Katherine of
Aragon. Bana has the physical goods for the role, but he does not have the
swagger and charm of Richard Burton in Anne
of the Thousand Days or Jonathan Rhys Meyers in The
Tudors. Bana fumbles through a role that does not give him much to do
and it’s hard to believe that women are so obsessed by him. In most versions
of this story Lady Katherine is generally portrayed as the dignified victim; The
Other Boleyn Girl takes a similar path but it’s not able to do much with
her character and leaves her story incomplete. In dealing with the politics of
the time, The Other Boleyn Girl skims over the subjects of Papal
authority, Henry’s break with the Catholic Church, and the volatile nature of
the Reformation. This lack of context robs the love triangle and the Boleyn
family’s ambition of more serious gravity that would make the situation even
more precarious. The same is true of the sexuality in the film; The Other
Boleyn Girl is done in a PG-13 style and so the events are conveyed in a way
that is suitable for a high school crowd but don’t get into the down and dirty
of the love triangle.
Bottom Line: The Other Boleyn Girl is an
honest attempt to delve into the issues of gender and power that the Boleyn
sisters have come to symbolize. The result is mixed. Portman gives a great
performance but the film is too restrained for most adult audiences and it skims
over too much historical information. This might be best considered an
alternative to The Tudors for younger or more sensitive viewers. It also
makes an interesting companion piece to Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth and Elizabeth:
The Golden Age.