Chopped up ‘Boleyn Girl’ worth renting
VIDEO VIPER for Dec. 12, 2008
Every once in awhile, you just need to see a costume drama.
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“The Other Boleyn Girl” does rather nicely, mixing sex, high drama and inevitable executions.
If you ever wondered, Britain’s King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) was one chauvinist. No, he’s not like a construction worker wolf-whistling at a girl walking by on the street.
Rather, he puts to death women who don’t produce a healthy son for him. The one woman who does give him a male isn’t married to him, so it doesn’t count.
When the film opens, Henry’s wife at the time produces a dead male child. This gets the courtyard folks’ tongues wagging.
Anne Boleyn’s father has a great idea. Why not get his luscious daughter (Natalie Portman) to start an affair with the king?
You see, being the mistress of the king of England happens to be a nice status symbol, we learn. Nobody looks down on the girl who prostitutes herself for Henry, decked out in fancy garb and a hat that looks like he is playing golf in the 1930s.
Anne and the king are matched during a hunting party. Unfortunately, Henry rides his horse down a ravine and falls.
When he wakes up, it is Anne’s sister, Mary, (Scarlett Johansson) who is caring for him. King falls in lust and is soon having his way with Mary instead.
Anne isn’t too happy about all of this. Anne gets her chance when Mary bores Henry a son. The son isn’t an heir because Mom and Dad aren’t married.
Henry still has um, needs, and with Mary out of commission, Anne figures she can make her move.
Now Anne isn’t dumb. She isn’t just going to jump in the sack like Sis, who ended up without the king and with a baby.
Anne says no bedding until she is queen of England. Now Henry is still married and the pope won’t go along with an annulment. But Henry really, really wants Anne. So he severs ties with the Catholic Church, creates his own church, and chop, chop, off goes wifey’s head and he marries Anne.
If you don’t use this movie as your main reference point for a history paper, you will enjoy it.. It’s rich in purple costumes and bosomy goodness. They may have rented the sets from HBO’s “Rome.”
Anne commits the sin of boring Henry a daughter, who she names Elizabeth. Now who ever heard of a ruler of a country named Elizabeth?
Kingly Henry didn’t realize at the time that the sex of a child is decided by the male partner so he’s not happy with Anne. Anne shutters at his look and with good reason. She, too, isn’t long for this world. Johannson plays her part a bit too subdued and Bana needed to play his part a bit more menacing. This has potential as the next “Rocky Horror,” with people wearing 16th-century garb and carrying rubber axes into the theater. Bed-hopping and busty may be the best way to describe “The Other Boleyn.” It’s worth the rental.
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