The Other Boleyn Girl

Genevieve Bujold presented a much more sympathetic portrait of Anne Boleyn in the 1969 Anne of a Thousand Days (to Richard Burton’s Henry VIII).  By contrast Philippa Gregory’s book delivers an Anne Boleyn who is ambitious and calculating through and through. Mary is described as “kinder and fairer” while her sister is deemed ambitious, “not simple and uncomplicated.” It may not be a historically accurate characterization of her but if makes for some nasty backroom scheming. The scheming, however, begins with older members of the family. Pretty young daughters such as Anne are like prized bargaining chips. So Sir Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance) needs only slight encouragement from his wife’s ambitious brother the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey) to employ his daughters in a scheme to improve the family’s social standing.

When King Henry (Eric Bana) comes to the Boleyn home, Sir Thomas presents his daughter Anne (Natalie Portman) in the hopes Henry will take her as his mistress and reward the family with money and position. Anne, after a momentary hesitation, eagerly accepts the challenge “to bed the king,” and goes after the king with great gusto. Too much perhaps, as the King takes an interest instead in Anne’s already married sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson). When the King takes the reluctant Mary as his mistress, it sets both personal and political dramas in motion. It causes a rift between the sisters, and it sets in motion major political upheaval as Henry looks to break with the Catholic Church so that he can annul his current marriage in order to marry a younger bride who could give him a much-desired male heir. If you know you're history, it doesn't end well for Anne but Anne's daughter gets to exact a kind of revenge for her mother's fate.

The Other Boleyn Girl turns British history into a chick flick soaper with high production values and A-list actors. Visually – be it the luminous costumes or the exquisite beauty of the actresses – the film is lovely to behold. It shimmers and glows in candlelit chambers. Justin Chadwick, whose previous credits are mostly in British television, revels in the scope and scale of the big screen. The rich colors of the costumes stand out against the dark wooden hues of the rooms. He makes these lovely young women in their bright, silken robes almost pop out from the somber background. He loves both the interiors of the royal court, and the exteriors of the historical castles and building as they loom ominously on the landscape. Chadwick puts his money up on the screen and reminds us of the visual appeal a costume historical drama can have.

Eric Bana and Scarlett Johansson as the King and his new mistress. (Columbia Pictures)

Although I hesitate to make this comparison for fear of elevating The Other Boleyn Girl to a higher level of artistry than it deserves but here goes. The choice Chadwick makes to film many scenes through screens, drapes and doorways -- like a spying outsider observing the ruthless politics of court ambition -- reminded me of Hou Hsaio-Hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai . Hou did not look to the British royal court but rather to the elegant brothels of late nineteenth century Shanghai. But both films employ a visual style that emphasizes the suffocating environment, the ruthless maneuvering for power in back rooms, and the way sex and women are used in power plays. Hou, however, elevates his tale to sublime artistry. Chadwick, on the other hand, wallows in soapy melodrama, unable to find anything beyond the bedroom politics.

Chadwick's film does convey a sense of court intrigue as people are constantly jockeying for position and power. As more films and TV shows return to the British monarchs of the past for inspiration, you are reminded why Shakespeare devoted so many of his plays to the British family. The lives of these kings and queens make for fascinating drama. Unfortunately, The Other Boleyn Girl isn’t much concerned with history. As Henry severs ties with the Catholic Church, the film chooses to focus instead on the tiff between sisters and Anne whining about Henry’s fickle nature. Now, a film focusing on the private lives of these public figures is fine, but when the private lives are reduced to soap opera cliches, then your interest starts to wander toward the bigger social and political issues that have been pushed to the periphery of the story.

Sibling rivalry in The Other Boleyn Girl (Columbia Pictures)

Yet the world Chadwick depicts in his film is one in which the private and the public sometimes overlap. So when Mary spends a night with the King, she’s summoned by her father and uncle and commanded to reveal all the details because it is “not a private matter.” It's an uncomfortable moment for the shy young woman. Chadwick and screenwriter Peter Morgan don’t quite navigate this private-public terrain effectively. Morgan succeeded better in this regard with his script for The Queen. Morgan also penned a TV movie about Henry VIII (with Ray Winstone as the Tudor King), but he gives short shrift to the character this time around, not letting us see anything that might remotely reveal wit, strength or intelligence. Within the context of this film, Henry comes across as a weak, petty man easily swayed by a pretty face. History suggests that there was more to him than that.

At one point, Anne’s mother (played with weary regret by Kirsten Scott-Thomas) informs her daughter that the "art of being a woman is to allow men to believe they are in charge." And that’s the world we are given. The men, from a dramatic standpoint, are not very interesting and seem rather passive. Henry has to be prodded by Anne to any action, and Anne’s downfall is initiated by another conniving woman in the court not by Henry himself. Lady Boleyn knows the world her daughters live in and bemoans the fact that women "are traded like cattle for the advancement and amusement of men." Yet she reveals that she, unlike her daughters, married for love and not position or advancement. So you wonder how she was able to pull that off and why she is so unsuccessful in guiding her children and husband to better decisions.

The cast dives into the sudsy melodrama with the utmost seriousness. They deliver classy performances in what is essentially a royal soap opera. Johansson is all sweetness as the sister who just wants a quiet country life. Portman gets the meatier part as the ambitious Anne. She gets to verbally spar with the King but besting this particular Henry is not difficult. Writer Morgan and actor Bana make this Henry a bore and a beast.

The Other Boleyn Girl (rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content and some violent images) is entertaining but not very thoughtful fare.

Companion viewing: Private Life of Henry VIII (Charles Laughton and Merle Oberon as King Henry VIII and Anne), Anne of a Thousand Days (Genevieve Bujold, Richard Burton), A Man For All Seasons (Vanessa Redgrave uncredited as Anne to Robert Shaw's Henry), BBC’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Keith Mitchell, Dorothy Tutin), Henry VIII (Helena Bonham Carter as Anne, Ray Winstone as Henry), The Tudors (Natalie Dormer as Anne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry)

And for fun here, here's a cinematic history of British monarchs (in roughly chronological order of their rein) before and after Henry VIII:

Before Henry VIII:
King Lear (Laurence Olivier, James Earl Jones or Paul Scofield as the legendary, prehistoric king of the Britons)
Excalibur (Nigel Terry as the King of legend)
Macbeth (Orson Welles or Jon Finch, technically not a British King but the play was supposedly written to please King James I)
Edward II (Steven Waddinton)
Becket (Peter O’Toole as Henry II)
Lion in Winter (Peter O’Toole again as Henry II, Anthony Hopkins as soon to be Richard the Lionheart)
Adventures of Robin Hood (Ian Richardson as Richard the Lionheart)
Robin and Marian (Richard Harris as Richard the Lionheart)
Henry V (Kenneth Branagh or Laurence Olivier)
Richard III (Ian McKellen or Laurence Olivier)

After Henry VIII:
Lady Jane (Helena Bonham Carter)
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (Bette Davis as Queen Bess)
Elizabeth R (with Glenda Jackson)
Elizabeth (the first Cate Blanchett-Shekhar Kapur collaboration one not the soapier more recent Elizabeth: The Golden Age)
Elizabeth I (Helen Mirren)
Mary of Scotland (Katherine Hepburn)
Mary Queen of Scots (Vanessa Redgrave)
The Madness of King George (Nigel Hawthorne)
Mrs. Brown (Judi Dench as Queen Victoria)
Edward and Mrs. Simpson (Edward Fox)
Edward the King (Timothy West)
The Queen (Helen Mirren as the current monarch)