By Linda Winsh-Bolard
Mary Boleyn is to be married and the King will attend the wedding. Henry the VIII {Eric Bana) is married to Katherine of Aragon (Ana Torrent), but their only child is daughter Mary. The Boleyn men conspire to put their unmarried daughter, Anne {Natalie Portman}, in King's way, his bed and possibly even a bit higher to get as many advantages from him as possible.
But it is Mary {Scarlett Johansson} who catches Henry’s eye and finds herself abandoned by her husband, who prefers his new position at the Court, and her family who are happy to use her. Mary is biddable, compliant and ends up with a daughter the King does not even acknowledge.
Anne was sent to France to get educated. After she comes back, when Mary is pregnant in confinement, she is again set to get the King’s attention.
Anne is much more intelligent than Mary. She knows that being King’s mistress is a bitter deal. She might gain temporary advantages for her family, although Henry was stingy, but will end up with bastards either unmarried or married off somewhere where she would be out of sight. Anne also knows that standing against her family wishes would mean the same.
So she tries to resist Henry’s advantages reminding him he is married to a Catholic Spanish Princess who is always there, even if not in the same room. Anne declares that unless married she will not “give herself” to Henry.
At the end Henry divorces Catherine and marries Anne. But Anne has no better luck that Katherine had; she fails to produce a son. She has Elisabeth and miscarries twice. A family competing with Boleyns for king's favors, uses the situation and pushes Henry into the arms of Jane Seymour. Jane is young and promises male heir. Henry executes Anne for treason declaring her unfaithful to make the next marriage possible.
The film portrays Anne Boleyn as a scheming, possibly immoral woman who took a royal lover from her sister and broke a marriage to become Queen. Mary is the sweet innocent who loses her love to her scheming sister and Henry merely a bewitched man who fell for the wrong woman.
It is of course, the wrong era to portray women as scheming ambition driven witches who will stop at nothing to become first ladies.
It is also the wrong time to portray cruel, selfish, power obsessed men as nice guys who fall in love. Or, depending on how misogynist you are, the best of times.
Director Justin Chadwick said that he wanted to modernize the story. It would have been modernized had it shown women as being helpless pawns in their families fights for power. Expendable to all, their value being only their youth, beauty and the children they are expected to produce. Women themselves had no right to these children or any material goods unless they were widows. The property of married woman belonged to her husband, as did her children, daughters were wholly owned by their father’s who were free to do with them as they pleased.
The Other Boleyn Girl, with beautiful costumes and stage designs, starts as bodice ripper but promises some fun. Albeit it does not deliver.The father (Mark Rylance) and uncle, the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey), use the girls to get ahead while their mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) has biting comments and the girls compete blond against brunette. It wears rather thin rather fast. The actors do adequate jobs but nothing more, the dialogs are progressively more modern and trashier as they go on, and there is no saving grace. Bodice ripper with a beheading block at the end just doesn't make it.
As far as any historical truth, the film is about as accurate as the dark haired Bana resembles the fiery red headed Tudor.
Anne must have been terrified once she realized that her family was going to use her to get to the king, and that the king is actually interested. Her life was over at that moment. She could not offend the king; she could not fight her family unless she wanted to be sent to a cloistered nun’s order. The wooing and marriage between Anne Boleyn and Henry the VIII lasted 6 years. It is doubtful that Anne ever had any other power over him but to deny sex. Even so, her chances to make a good marriage were over, either she displeased the king, or she was to become soiled goods. Intelligent Anne must have known that Henry, like other English kings, chafed at Rome’s influence and would gladly shake the Pope and his Church, given good enough a reason. And of course, she knew there was no legitimate son and illegitimate children were not eligible for the crown.
Henry was obsessed with male heirs. He remembered well the 30 years long war and the tenuous claim that the Tudors had to the English throne. He cruelly pursued the one thing history denied him: establishing a dynasty. When Jane died with only Edward being born, Henry married 17 years old Catherine Howard and had her executed for being unfaithful as well as childless. Unlike Anne, silly, giddy Catherine Howard probably was. He then married Catherine Parr who escaped the block only because her religious friends protected and helped her. Henry was going to execute her for treason. Catherine Parr did not produce a son either. Afraid of succession trouble, Henry, who declared both his daughters bastards, willed as old man, that should Edward die without issue, Mary first and Elizabeth second would be eligible to become the rulers of England.
He had not foreseen that Elizabeth, who could never even exhume the body of her Mother to have it reburied, would be so wary of marriage and male children that she would prefer to live as single Queen leaving the kingdom to James Stuart.
Far from being an innocent country girl, Mary had spent years at Austrian and French courts and had been an accomplished flirt. Her affair with Henry lasted, depending on a historian, two to six years, and produced a son. Henry did not acknowledge the child, but provided for him until Mary re-married. Her daughter Catherine was her husband's child. Mary was wedded at the age of 12, pregnant by 15. When her sister became a favorite, and later Queen, Mary was at her side, attending the coronation, visiting France and their relationship was good until Mary married secretly a man with no money and no title, and furious Anne banned her. Marriages of royal relations were a Royal Council affair.
Mary lived in the country, did not attend her sister’s, or her brother’s execution, and survived until Elizabeth provided for her and her children.
The film is based on Philippa Gregory 2001 novel, there was also BBC version of it in 2003.
Focus Features, Columbia Pictures
BBC Films, Ruby Films, Scott Rudin Prods., Relativity Media
Credits:
Director Justin Chadwick
Writer: Peter Morgan
Producer: Alison Owen
Executive producers: Scott Rudin, David M. Thompson
Director of photography: Kieran McGuigan
Production designer: John-Paul Kelly
Music: Paul Cantelon
Costume designer: Sandy Powell
Co-producer: Mark Cooper
Editors: Paul Knight, Carol Littleton
Cast:
Anne Boleyn: Natalie Portman
Mary Boleyn: Scarlett Johansson
King Henry VIII: Eric Bana
Duke of Norfolk: David Morrissey
Lady Elizabeth Boleyn: Kristin Scott Thomas
Sir Thomas Boleyn: Mark Rylance
George Boyleyn: Jim Sturgess
Katharine of Aragon: Ana Torrent
William Stafford: Eddie Redmayne
William Carey: Benedict Cumberbatch
Henry Percy: Oliver Coleman
Jane Parker: Juno Temple
