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As of May 21, 2012

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The Other Boleyn Girl

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

"Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived," was something drummed into me and other students, in British schools, a big part of any student’s history education. The appeal of the Tudors for a film maker is evident. Though set a long time ago, The Other Boleyn Girl has all the ingredients of a modern day soap opera: intrigue, deception, and King who has a insatiable roaming eye and changes partners with a marked frequency. The acting revolves around two much lauded young actresses, who hold superstar status and who both have played parts in previous historical pieces, Scarlett Johansson in "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" and Natalie Portman who was in "Goya’s Ghosts". Their performances, for me were adequate, without living up to the potential such a combination might offer.

For me, I didn’t really get the sense they were sisters because facially they are so different. Scarlett Johansson has this Scandinavian look, long blond flowing hair, and blue eyes; her supposed sister has far darker features and dark brown eyes. Were they cast more so due to their box office potential? The girls are seen more as commodities by their scheming snakelike father Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance) and their odious uncle the Duke of Norfolk (played excellently by David Morrissey). Their mother Elizabeth Boleyn (Kristin Scott Thomas) is more cautious about her daughter’s fates, but the two men are overwhelmed with a greedy ambition and a lust for power and status.

Their first plan is to pair off their oldest daughter Anne, (Portman) as there is a vacancy in the King’s bed, because the Queen cannot conceive a male heir. This plan fails, as the King is drawn more to Anne’s younger sister (Johansson) who has recently married. The men in the family ascertain that if a Boleyn girl can win the favour of the King, the Boleyn’s star with rise and they will be bestowed with status and wealth. As history tells us, they are playing a dangerous game, the King (Eric Bana) is volatile and seems to lose interest in woman as soon they are impregnated. Mary does produce the male child he yearns for, however he is still married to Katherine of Aragon and the King rejects both mother and child. After a stint in France, learning how the French woman courtiers hook their males and keep them in place, Anne returns and almost immediately wins the King’s favour, at the second time of asking. Of course this leads to a bit of a rupture with her sister. Anne is not as virtuous as the King would have liked, as earlier she had romped and secretly married with nobleman Henry Percy, which had led to her banishment to France. The King is suspicious and does not have the trust he has for her younger sister.

Deception and complex relationships seem to colour this period in English history. Henry is beguiled by Anne and reluctantly divorces his wife Katherine. Of course the problem of bearing a son and heir surfaces again and Anne’s days are numbered, a new woman will soon be in place. If you like the sound of loud pounding hooves, beautiful ornate costumes, conniving, shameless plotting, this would be a film to indulge in. Johansson seems to have this constant perplexed look etched on her face. For me there is something intrinsically lacking, the film lacks a soul, the ability to move the audience, and the film is not convincing, some of the shots of the buildings looked overtly computer contrived, it made me wince.. Perhaps I have seen too many films with heads being shifted with the swish of an axe or sword, to be moved at the end of the film.

I expected more from the two a list leading actresses, however I liked Eric Bana’s smoldering rendition of Henry the Eighth. The opening shot in the film shows three children playing freely in a typically English corn field, how terribly their fates turned out, their lives poisoned by their father’s greed and the only one to survive a horrible ending was Mary, perhaps ironically the only one with a sense of decency. The film is an adaptation of a book by British author Philippa Gregory and a remake of a BBC television film of the same name. Perhaps it worked well on television, but it is not as potent as a film.