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royalty and rivalry

Period pieces sometimes try too hard, as did the Elizabeth The Golden Age. Despite the courtly setting, there’s not much that’s epic about The Other Boleyn Girl. Most of the camera angles aren’t sweeping, focus is kept squarely on the characters. It’s still a lush and gorgeous film, but it comes in close, revealing the ugliness of amoral ambition. When it comes down to it, the king is just a man and the Boleyn girls are women. They interest us as historical figures, but we care because they are people.
You go into the movie thinking that the “other Boleyn girl” is automatically Mary (Scarlett Johansson). After all, she didn’t ultimately become the Queen of England. But the movie is satisfyingly murky on that point. Anne (Natalie Portman) even refers to herself as the “other Boleyn girl.” Who the other Boleyn girl is will depend on your point of view and when in the movie you are.
We begin with Anne Boleyn and Mary Boleyn playing as innocent children. The two share everything and are very close. They soon grow up, ready to be married in order to increase their family’s fortunes. When Anne’s father Sir Thomas (Mark Rylance) hears from the ambitious Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey) that King Henry (Eric Bana) is unhappy with his childless wife, they hatch a plan to set Anne in his path, in the hopes that she will charm him and become his mistress, elevating the family’s fortunes. Unfortunately, the King’s favor goes to the shy Mary.
Sibling rivalry and love is a predominate theme. The closeness and competition between the two girls is often reflected in the costumes. Many times they appear onscreen together wearing matching outfits. It’s not incorrect for the time, as families with multiple daughters would often buy large bolts of fabric and then make a dress for each daughter with it. The matching outfits and their competition for Henry VII are definitely some kind of wish fulfillment for most of the red-blooded American males.
Even though Portman’s Anne becomes good at the courtly game and the manipulation of men, there are times when you realize that, despite the cloak of ambition she’s thrown over herself, she’s still just a girl, ultimately helpless before the machine of politics.
Nobody cries like Portman. Sorrow, in all its shades, can find a place on her face. Her mega-expressive eyebrows alone could star in this film without her. While she hasn’t always picked the best roles for herself, she (and her eyebrows) shine in this one.
My opinion of Scarlett Johansson’s acting abilities is that she couldn’t act drunk if you gave her a bottle of moonshine and made her chug it. I know that other people love her, she’s won awards and yes, she’s tackled many a difficult role, but we’re all entitled to our opinions. But she did her job as Mary. Besides abundance of cleavage and lips that will never need botox, one thing she’s always had going for her is a center of stillness that she’s used to her advantage or detriment in other films. In this case, it works for her and works well. She and Portman have onscreen synergy, which doesn’t hurt either.
Both actresses seemed to have a tough time faking a pseudo- Brit accent, and I kept thinking of Portman in Star Wars every so often, but I soon overlooked that. Besides, Portman’s headgear in this movie isn’t nearly as ostentatious.
I loved this movie, with its layers of human frailty, bawdiness and meaning. Even though it never feels as though the focus is skewed too far on the period clothes and setting, I still reveled in the richness of the fabrics and the colors. The clothes and the long hallways weren’t just there as window dressing, they expressed characters and enhanced the oppressiveness of court.
Now, to be fair, the movie does exploit history like some Scotsman exploit sheep. But history, unlike sheep, enjoys this kind of thing, even if the celluloid Anne Boleyn didn’t. It’s a game of fill in the blanks (if that doesn’t carry the metaphor too absurdly far) for historical(ish) movies.
Very little is actually known about Anne’s sister Mary, but the filmmakers took what is known about her and crossed out most of it during a script rewrite. Seriously though, the movie is based on a book of the same name, whose author paid even less attention to actual history than the scriptwriters did. For the student of history, there are a million glaring inaccuracies, but accuracy isn’t the point. Entertainment is, and I was entertained. It had none of the slow plodding pace that other historical movies labor under. During one plot point I actually felt like I was watching a period piece from the FX channel—you know, absurdly trashy melodrama, wherein someone hears something they shouldn’t in a dark corner as the main characters conspire. Still, I couldn’t help feeling that they somehow earned that moment. Plus, I was having a good time.