Hot Properties Rule

After seeing the first two season of “The Tudors,” I was curious to see “The Other Boleyn Girl,” which was released on DVD this week (6/17). I was sorely disappointed; compared to ”The Tudors” it is an inept telling of the tale. While the initial 15 minutes seemed promising, especially for its visual splendor, as the cinematographer had a keen eye for color, composition, and making subtle connections with Renaissance painting, the overall drift of the narrative wasn’t equal to that early look of the picture. Unfortunately, it slid down to mediocrity in its lame attempt to describe the fate of Mary and Anne Boleyn and their father and uncle, the Duke of Norfolk.

But after that start with the pretty pictures, which created a credible ambiance of the time period, we come hard up against the two sisters and the two actresses who play them, Natalie Portman as Anne and Scarlet Johansson as Mary. I found it difficult to get by who they were, two hot properties of Hollywood, two lovely young actresses thrown together willy-nilly to make a movie that was supposed to make the producers a lot of money. Both girls are all the rage right now, and a sure bet at the box office. Their Hollywood personae simply overshadowed the historical personalities they were attempting to play. I could not believe their projections, as they never left their Hollywood identities behind; they were merely costumed for the occasion, although I would say that Scarlet Johansson was a bit more successful than Portman. The story was fashioned to fit them rather than the other way around. As a result it descended into a shrill and tedious melodrama, full of sound and fury, but signifying damn little.

With “The Tudors,” which I grant you had more room to breathe and a larger canvas to work on, there was a complex intellectual involvement with the ramification of Henry’s pending awesome decision to separate England from the rule and power of Rome. For example, Anne Boleyn, besides being a “scheming trollop,” was a bright girl committed to the notions of spiritual revolt; she introduced Henry to books that influence his thinking about reform of the Church. She’s passionate in more than one way. You get none of that in “The Other Boleyn Girl.” Indeed, the film as directed by British Director Justin Chadwick skated over those events of huge historical consequence in a brief scene, which surprised me how short and awkward it was, like something that had to be shoehorned in at the last moment. It was as if Henry’s decision was of little moment next to twists and turns of Court intrigue and affairs. Chadwick gave short shrift to the monumental crisis of Christendom, which was splitting apart after 1500 years of cohesiveness and steadfast unity, with only rare bumps in the road from a heresy here and there. The Reformation was no bump in the road; it was a full-scale upheaval that eventually led to over 250 forms of Christianity. That important fact was faced with earnest seriousness and appropriate thoughtfulness in “The Tudors,” but it was so downplayed in “The Other Boleyn Girl” it was like a minor event in the background, while the historical soap opera dragged on and on to satisfy middlebrow expectations. The director’s telling of the tale was wasted as melodrama; it grabbed the story by the throat and throttled whatever life it had to start with.

Eric Bana, who was Hector in “Troy,” does an adequate job as Henry the VIII, but it’s a role that was badly underwritten. His struggle with annulment and divorce and beginning the Church of England hardly were mentioned. Given the subject matter, that doesn’t make much sense. The sharpest performance in the movie was by Kristen Scott Thomas who was the mother of the Boleyn girls. She had bite and reality; she was bitter but very knowing, someone who knew the cost of being an independent woman. She was one character who could have been in the cast of “The Tudors.” She knew the score and what the world was like, like so many in “The Other Boleyn Girl” seemed surprised by, time after time, as if they had a sentimental base, not one characterized by a largely Machiavellian mentality. As it stands, the movie is a limp and rather empty historical melodrama.