Despicable people doing contemptible things have never equaled solid entertainment. The Other Boleyn Girl is not without its highlights – those being negligible and spread out amongst poorly-paced, drawn-out bits of heavily censored romance. Natalie Portman delivers a worthwhile performance as the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, but the rest of the too-beautiful cast doesn’t ever seem to authentically fit in to their lavish period piece costumes. Undoubtedly after viewing The Other Boleyn Girl, the audience will probably only want to research what truly happened.
When the Queen of England, Katherine of Eragon (Ana Torrent) is unable to produce a male heir for impatient King Henry Tudor (Eric Bana), he becomes besotted by Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman), who is intentionally placed before him to allow her weak father Thomas and her conniving uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, to remain in good favor with royalty.
During the King’s visit, Anne’s competitive personality finds Henry becoming injured, and being taken care of by her sister, Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson). The greedy King soon falls for the dewy-eyed sister, and she is whisked back to the court for his pleasure. Not long after, Mary is pregnant, and Anne Boleyn secretly gets married to nobleman Henry Percy. Anne is banished when the Duke of Norfolk discovers her spontaneous and unplanned marriage, but within a mere two months is brought back to keep the King occupied while Mary is bedridden.
Anne soon finds herself infatuated with potential power and control over the King, and manages to have Mary sent back to the countryside and Katherine of Aragon banished for false infidelities. Henry eventually breaks away from the Catholic Church when he arranges an annulment with his wife and marries Anne. Despite her promises, she is unable to produce a male heir for Henry, and he begins to regret his decisions over Katherine and his country, which leads to…well, the rest as they say, is history.
The Other Boleyn Girl is not entirely a history lesson, but it certainly is about as much fun. Which is to say that the beginning plods along with ruthless details on trivial things, and the love triangle that forms is predictable and blasé. Perhaps the most unappealing factor with this film is its dislikeable characters. Mary is initially at fault for dispensing misery to her sister, causing her to be banished; after this, she never really feels like a leading force of good, but is sadly the only character the film steers the audience into rooting for. After Anne becomes jealous of her sister’s success with the King, she is immediately an antagonist, wheeling and dealing to increase her power and remove her competition. The King himself is portrayed as an uncontrollably lustful and self-absorbed despot who thinks of himself before his kingdom, and presiding over all of these miserly characters is the Duke of Norfolk, who pulls the strings of his brother Thomas and plays with the lives and romances of Anne and Mary.
With the leads dressed in luxuriant costumes (Portman looks like Queen Amidala from Star Wars) and being traded like cattle, The Other Boleyn Girl goes to great lengths to show off beautiful people frolicking about in medieval fetes. Outside of Portman, who does a sensational job in a poorly penned role, the remaining cast feels horribly misplaced, like wolves in sheep’s clothing. By the conclusion, which perhaps unintentionally perfectly sets up for the film Elizabeth, all we really want to do is read about actual facts, and clear our minds of this heavily flourished film.
– Mike Massie (www.MoviePulse.net)
