The Other Boleyn Girl
starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas and David Morrissey
screenplay by Peter Morgan
directed by Justin Chadwick
Rating: ♦♦♦♦
Based on the novel by Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girlis a fascinating account of the conspiracies and competitions going on at Hampton Court in the time of King Henry VIII’s quest for a male heir, and the rivalry among aristocratic families to get their daughters into the king’s bed in order to advance the position of the family. The treatment of daughter’s as dressed-up cattle is really shocking - the frank family talk of their daughters’ sexuality and fecundity as a bargaining chip, the hypocritical approach to adultery and bastard offspring, etc. But you have to remember that Tudor England was still medieval times, not modern times. It was not a Golden Age. I guess you could say that modernity for England really dawned during the reign of Henry VIII’s daughter, Elizabeth I. Also, it is not a revelation, but still interesting to learn about how impoverished the land-based aristocrats were, or were becoming, and how money troubles fueled their drive to advance in the aristocracy and the favor of the royal court, plus how the balance of power in society that was slowly swaying towards the city-based merchants complicated things. So there was a lot going on, as there always is.
Specifically, The Other Boleyn Girl is about the Boleyn family whose eldest daughter became Henry VIII’s second wife (after divorcing the Spanish-born Queen Katherine of Aragon). Ultimately, Anne Boleyn was executed for treason and other allegations, allowing Henry to move on to his third wife, Jane Seymour, who subsequently died, etc. (Famously, Anne requested beheading by a French sword, which were highly reputable and said to be better at cutting through the neck than the much clumsier axe. I guess it was a request motivated to reduce her own suffering, like today’s condemned opting for lethal injection over, say, electrocution.) As fate would have it, the daughter born to Henry and Anne, Elizabeth, became one of England’s greatest monarch’s, reigning for 45-years, at a time that saw global exploration redefine the world, a cultural Renaissance occur throughout Europe (it was the time of William Shakespeare in London), and the dawn of modern times as we recognize them today. As we saw in Elizabeth (1998, directed by David Hirschfelder and starring Cate Blanchet, a movie for which The Other Boleyn Girl could almost be called a prequel), Elizabeth almost did not survive the same succession conspiracies that were still going on at court and in parliament in her day.
But the movie is not so much about Anne Boleyn (played by Natalie Portman) as it is about her younger sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) who became Henry’s first lover and bore him a son. (According to the movie, anyway. In reality the son that Mary Boleyn bore was only rumored to be the king’s, but never acknowledged as his bastard.) Mary is the “other Boleyn girl.” Almost by sheer luck, and her quiet life in the countryside, she survived the pathological travails of court life and raised her niece, Elizabeth.
At the moment I cannot imagine how historically accurate it is, but my guess is that if it is only just a little bit historically accurate it still makes for a brilliant, frightening, fascinating story. Frightening is a key word here, too, because in Henry’s court few were safe from his whims. He was a great king, and a horrible tyrant.
The execution scene at the end of the movie was pretty anti-climactic because the focus was always more on Mary, and Anne’s relationship with Mary more than on Anne’s relationship with Henry.