movie review: The Other Boleyn Girl
Sandro
2008
First up: I haven’t read the book this is based on, and I’m never
likely to. So this isn’t going to be either a bitchfest about how it
doesn’t conform to the book, or a point by point comparison betwixt
the two. Seeing the book (and, to a lesser extent, the film)
advertised gives me a strong sense that it’s chick lit/flick material.
Of course it’s not: it’s history! With Scarlett Johansson and Natalie
Portman! And Eric Bana (who cops third billing, which must be somewhat
humiliating) playing Henry the VIII! Sorry, Henry Tudor, King of
England.
It’s pretty hard to take a set-up like that seriously. With due
respect to Bana, who can play everything from a loathsome criminal
(Chopper), to a Hulk, to a noble Trojan prince (Troy) to a Mossad
hitman (Munich), such a cast list invites derision even before parking
one’s arse in the theatre. It’s simply ridiculous.
Hollywood goes middlebrow: an eternal recipe for disaster.
It’s preposterous on paper, and comes at a difficult time for
historical ‘epics’ to be taken seriously, especially after that recent
Elizabeth: The Golden Age abomination, which was an act of cinematic
atrocity inflicted upon an all-too-forgiving audience.
The truth is, I did derive a fair amount of enjoyment out of this
flick, and I’m not entirely sure why. Hating that last Elizabeth flick
left me prepared to get my hate on again, but it did not come to pass,
alas.
It’s not solely the pleasure for the eyes derived from watching
Scarlett and Natalie cavorting about in corsets and other such
frippery. It’s made with the same eye for “we’ve got to jazz this up
or people will be fucking bored” detail that damns other recent such
historical flicks that act as if two people talking is a cinematic
failure if it goes for more than 20 seconds. If they’re speaking to
each other for too long, without a cutaway scene where someone is
riding really fast on a horse as if chased by monsters from the Lord
of the Rings films, or having people hurry down a hall as if they’re
delivering a transplant organ instead of a hand towel, then the makers
feel that the real significance of these historical events won’t get
across to an audience which is now in a collective coma, thank you
very much.
But for all that, and for the simplistic renderings of the characters
themselves (Anne is conniving, Mary is nice, Henry is a brooding sex
crazed monster), something decent does come out of all this.
For those who’ve never heard the tale of Henry the VII, and his
prodigious appetites, and his incredible actions which changed the
course of England’s history solely because he was so desperate for a
male heir (and a notorious nailer of any available ladies, married or
not, willing or not), this story might seem a bit strange to them,
seeing as it is told from the point of view of the Boleyns rather than
the Tudors. In this the blame, or at least the catalyst for Henry’s
split with the Catholic Church, the creation of the Church of England,
and the execution of Katherine of Aragorn all result from the rivalry
betwixt the two Boleyn sisters, Anne (Portman) and Mary (Johansson).
Historically invalid, but dramatically intriguing.
At first the machinations and Machiavellian manoeuvrings arise from
the desire of the girls’ father (Mark Rylance) and uncle (David
Morrisey) to weasel their way higher in the Tudor court. The present
queen Katherine (Ana Torrent) has failed again to produce a male heir,
and the Boleyn men think that offering up the elder sister as a likely
mistress to the king will secure their wealth and position in court.
King Henry chooses the younger, recently married Boleyn, Mary,
instead, which enrages Anne and sets off a course of events that would
lead England to the brink of civil war.
At first the two sisters growing rivalry is not the deciding factor:
the constant meddling of the elder Boleyn men and the chattel-like
position of the girls means self-determination in their fates isn’t
really an option. Mary doesn’t really have a choice in matters despite
being married, since father, uncle and king leave her no room for
choice. When rebellious Anne defies the men, they ship her off to the
court of the French king, punishment through exile. Before she leaves,
her mother, Lady Elizabeth (Kristen Scott Thomas) bids her to learn
what she can about the art of manipulation and getting what you want
with cunning instead of tantrums.
And by being the greatest cocktease in British history.
A really glib way to look at Anne’s fate is to describe it as the
greatest occasion of buyer’s remorse in human memory. I’m familiar
with buyer’s remorse, intimately. Many is the occasion where I’ve
spent far too much to buy something that gets me little in return.
Rarely have I striven to attain something which has, ultimately,
destroyed myself and everyone I know.
That’s really what Anne’s fate is here: up until she gets what she
wants, which is to be the Queen of England, she is calculating,
cunning, careful and ruthless. She has no qualms about destroying her
own sister, getting Katherine killed or potentially ruining England.
Once she’s there, though, it’s a very different story.
Portman is weak in many scenes, probably the weakest in what is, apart
from the leads, a solid cast, but she’s pretty good in scenes with her
sister. Her scenes are less strong with the King, but we could be
generous and say that the falling apart of her acting coincides with
the falling apart of her acting.
Even if it’s not at all true, we could say that. There are a fair few
clunkers in the script, resulting in exchanges between characters that
sometimes sound like what Americans think British people with silver
spoons up their arses talk like, and other moments that waver between
contemporary expressions (I was expecting them to say stuff like
“like”, and “you know” at certain points) and self-parody.
As history it’s redundant, as a cinematic experience it’s directed in
a clumsy and hamfisted manner, but dramatically (or even
melodramatically) it worked for me, for reasons I still can’t fathom.
There’s something about the manner in which the girls throw themselves
into the pantomime, and something about what the film says about the
status of women at this time that speaks to me. Though much of the
direction is murky, some of the court scenes and the indoor
cinematography spoke strongly of the inherent weirdness of life at
court. I also appreciated the fact that the character of the king
didn’t devolve into self-parody, because the temptation could have
been to outdo Orson Welles or any of the other cinematic versions
where the guy is represented as an obese glutton from beginning to
end. I don’t need to see him or anyone tearing legs off roasted beasts
and chowing down with bits of food all over his face. On the other
hand, Bana physically seems wrong for the role, despite brooding
appropriately throughout.
The dynamic between the two sisters is the heart of the story, not the
king and his wicked ways, and since that’s the story they’re trying to
tell here, they succeed. The strongest scenes are delivered by
actresses, whether it’s Lady Elizabeth, or Katherine of Aragorn, or,
ultimately, Anne Boleyn, in front of a court of scheming nobles who,
despite the ladies’ eloquence and their innocence in the face of their
respective charges, will be destroyed nonetheless by men who prize
their ambition over the lives of these women.
There is a muddled kind of feminist message hidden amidst the soap
opera level melodrama and eye candy. I’m not sure if I understood it,
or if it really made any sense, but I’m still kind of glad that it’s
there. Kristen Scott Thomas, playing the Boleyn mother, is also really
strong in revealing what the likely fate of both her girls will be,
despite the hopes and greed of the men who make the decisions in her
family that she is powerless to stop. She’s not above deriding the men
to their faces, either.
However wishy-washy Portman is at certain points, there is no
disputing how strong she is in her final scene where her fate is
sealed. Sealed in such a way as if to say “this is what happens when
women get too above themselves and think they are the equal of men.”
When will the ladies learn? Men are way too insecure to allow them
true self-determination, in this or any other era. Even a hypothetical
Empress Hillary Clinton could never change that.
Of course, the very end of the flick refers very clearly to who would
succeed Henry on the throne of England, which becomes a victory of
sorts for the sisters in the story and the Sisterhood in general.
Hooray for the ladies!
As history it’s diabolical, but as entertainment it’s passable.
Passably enjoyable stuff. I enjoyed it despite the thousands of
objections I could probably have come up with, but it worked for what
was intended. And, you know, the road to hell is paved with good
intentions, but at least that makes for a decent ride getting there.
Sandro - 6 times I kept wondering whether Scarlett was finally going
to get the ‘girls’ out to no avail out of 10. Which is a shame,
Scarlett. Would have given the flick an extra point otherwise, maybe
even two points in that case.
--
“These were the rooms for the king's closest friend. His head now rots
on a spike.” – The Other Boleyn Girl