We’ve been stuffed full of Tudors in the last 12 months: there was Anne-Marie Duff as the young Elizabeth; Mirren as the old; Blanchett as she who must be obeyed on screen; and Rhys Meyers as he who must be obeyed in the bedroom. Now these Boleyns.
What’s to differentiate them? Here, the matriarchy argument is the film’s only answer. It’s the actresses who have the potency. As mother to the Boleyn sisters Anne (Natalie Portman) and Mary (Scarlett Johansson), Kristin Scott Thomas epitomises a woman at once powerful, and yet powerless to prevent her daughters seducing the king either for love (Mary) or leverage (Anne). All are excellent, and though of course they’re punished for their transgressions, the production of Elizabeth I is an early result for feminism.
For their part, the men are limp biscuits. Eric Bana is redundant as Henry, despite the broadest shoulders, while Peter Morgan’s screenplay is, like The Queen, just a TV soap in disguise. The edit is just as patchy – history absurdly condensed. So between the colloquial and the parochial, it is left to the visuals to achieve a heavyweight feel. Thus The Other Boleyn Girl is worth it for the women and the odd oil painting, but risible beyond both.
