The Other Boleyn Girl

If we can trust history, or at least what novelist Philippa Gregory brings to history as adapted for the screen by Peter Morgan (“The Queen,” “The Last King of Scotland”), at least one man lived who wanted more than sex, and he was in a position to get that. According to “The Other Boleyn Girl,” he has been looking for…babies! Not that he lacked them, especially given the six wives he enjoyed before having some of them beheaded. But he wanted a male to take the throne when he would die, probably turning over in his grave when Elizabeth later took the crown and wore it for forty-five years. While the film gives ample time to Henry, its principal focus is on two of the women in the king’s life who impressed him the most, favorably at first, later to become disgruntled (isn’t that the way!).

Thematically, “The Other Boleyn Girl” is a story of sibling rivalry, pitting a pair of sisters against each other, each competing for the one man in her life. While director Chadwick falsifies history to some extent—you’ve gotta tell a good story and delete some facts when they get in the way—“Boleyn” is clearly more an accurate history than historical fiction. This is a tale fitted into a film with two actresses—Natalie Portman as Anne and Scarlett Johansson as Mary—whose principal ambitions come across to the audience loud and clear. Most of us moviegoers are going to cheer Mary, because when she carries on an affair with King Henry, she has learned to love the man whom she considers tender, handsome and well-educated. As for Anne, she’s the sort who would intimidate some of us on a date or in the office. She’s headstrong, she knows what she wants, and she will let nothing and nobody stop her, not her father, not her sister, not even the king.

All this makes for an intriguing story with soap-opera undertones, told well on the screen, with all the betrayals, sell-outs, envy, and the aforementioned rivalry. Kieran McGuigan films the panorama on sites around England with its renovated and reconstructed castles, Sandy Powell dresses the women in costumes symbolizing their separate personalities (soft colors for Mary and bolder tones for Anne), while Paul Cantelon’s music is never overbearing. (Thanks IMDB.)

We pick up on the idea that people have not changed, not since 10,000 B.C. We human beings have always been envious, ambitious, and betraying devils but also angelic when love kicks in to our relationships. The Boleyn family of the Sixteenth Century is not unlike our families today. The Boleyn girls’ father, uncle and brother use the sisters as pawns in their groping for power, position, and wealth. Taking advantage the king’s search for a mistress after his aging wife, Katherine of Aragon (Anna Torrent, who is awesome in this), fails to produce a male heir, Sir Thomas arranges for the king to come to his household to check out his two daughters, thinking that Anne would be favored. He ultimately pimps out Mary for the mistress position, the deal going down despite Mary’s preference for the simple life of the country with her husband. Though Mary learns to love the man, Henry tires of her, summons Anne back from an exile in France, only to be given an option: Anne will not “lie” with the king unless he marries her, making her queen. Henry abandons the Catholic Church in order to get rid of Katherine and marries Anne, making everyone happy except Katherine, Mary, one Jane Parker (Juno Temple) and to some extent the Boleyn matriarch, Lady Elizabeth (Kristin Scott Thomas).

As they say, "be careful when you wish for" power and position. Those of us who know history understand how this family drama turned out. As for others, there will be surprises. The story of “The Other Boleyn Girl” has been done before, though without the strong emphasis on the sibling rivalry. As for the relatively minor distortions of history, who cares, I hate history. Mary never did go to Anne’s defense when the situation got life-threateningly intense, but writer Peter Morgan wants us to believe that ultimately, sisters will stick together when the going gets tough. Eric Bana nicely plays the king with all his contradictions—his tenderness and fury, his culture and his barbarism. Scarlett Johansson convinces as the simple girl who wants only love, Natalie Portman as the far more urban type who cares as much for what’s on her head as what makes her below the neck, hello boobies. If nothing else, this film is a showcase for Natalie Portman. While the first half hour of this film is borrrrinngggg, altogether, “The Other Boleyn Girl” satisfies where satisfaction is demanded: in performance (most noteably Natlie Portman's), production design, costumes and direction.

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