Film Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

The Other Boleyn Girl (Cert 12A, 115 mins)
Stars: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas, David Morrissey, Benedict Cumberbatch
Directed by Justin Chadwick

ANOTHER British television director gets his cinema chance, this time with a piece of historical recreation. This is the story of Mary and Anne Boleyn, two sisters  who bedded Henry VIII but with varying results.

Based on Philippa Gregory’s part-fictional account of the story, some of scriptwriter Peter Morgan’s facts are a little awry, but the sense of history comes across.

Natalie Portman plays the scheming Anne whose one aim in life – after a return from France – is to wed Henry VIII.

She is happy to abandon her sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson), pregnant with Henry’s child and thus of no further sexual interest to him, and get Henry to divorce his wife, change the face of religious England and succumb to him.

Egging her on is her father (Mark Rylance) and uncle, the Duke Of Norfolk (Liverpool’s David Morrissey doing a spot of scene-stealing as the villain of the piece) while Eric Bana’s Henry VIII just walks around looking rather grumpy. This is Henry before he piled on the pounds, but in Bana’s performance he is also dull.

Director Justin Chadwick, who gave such style to the TV adaptation of Bleak House, is content to just point his cameras at some pleasant scenery and houses, and watch his well- dressed actors parade around.