The Other Boleyn Girl

From Philippa Gregory's novel, 'The Other Boleyn Girl' does not pretend to be a historical record but explores some themes and basic facts concerning the Boleyn girls, Mary and Anne, and their relationship with Henry VIII of England.

This adaptation has the benefit of strong casting - Natasha McElhone and Jodhi May as the girls, Steven Mackintosh as their brother, Jared Harris as the King, Jack Shepherd and John Woodvine as the scheming elder Boleyns, seeing a chance to get their influence felt through sexual power over the King. This angle is well drawn, showing the girls as pawns in a power game. Smaller parts are equally well cast, including Philip Glenister as Stafford and Ron Cook as Cromwell.

Shot in a modern style - Mary and Anne talk to the camera as if in a reality show - this drama is compelling if not necessarily accurate.

Plainly made for TV, this austere earlier version of Philippa Gregory's revisionist 2001 novel flaunts its small screen origins with swaying camerawork in drab, grainy colours like a Ken Loach docudrama of the 1970s.

Although apparently no more accurate a picture of life at the court of Henry VIII - when he was still relatively young and dashing - than the other bawdy or Technicolored romps that preceded it, it still paints an appropriately harsh and claustrophobic picture of life as it probably really was in sixteenth century England.

I have mixed feelings about this film. I appreciated the use of color, it represents the harshness of the time. It's a nice change to see a period piece that's not glamorous. I can imagine it's tempting to make the good looking cast even better looking. The confessions in the camera I didn't understand. I do understand it was an

attempt to make it more intimate. But I don't think it workout that well here. I consider it to modern. It works in comedy like 'the private life of Samuel Pepys'. There it was brilliant. Maybe they could've used a confession setting for these scene's instead of putting them into a room speaking to the camera. And used

more close-ups instead of medium shots. That would make it more intimate and

dramatic.

The acting is superb! I enjoyed to see Jodhi May paying a wicked woman for a

change. She portrayed Anne Boleyn very good Her sick and cruel pleasure to

torture her family by for example trying to marry of her sister to a fat ugly man. Her frightening ambition and abuse of power is portrayed brilliantly.

The actor who played Henry and the actress who played Mary were also

brilliant. The rest of the cast were very complementary to the leading ladies and man.

Very good.

This is not a story about one person. It's about relations between people. This movie explains why Mary survived.

This is really a film worth wile seeing. But don't expect to see a conventional historical epic.

Voted 8

• A-M ---- English is not my first language so please excuse my spelling and grammar

errors

Some strong performances, but with some irritating features. The hand-held camera effects - a bit like 'This Life', I felt, with lots of cutting back and forth - and then asides to camera as though Anne and Mary Boleyn were nipping off to the 'Big Brother' Diary room.

A more important flaw was the lack of development of the religious or political themes - these were seen as background to purely personal conflicts - and, other than early in the film when the Boleyn family are shown discussing how to maintain influence at court - not the driving force behind events.

The 'break with Rome' - for example - is mentioned in passing by Anne in a 'Diary Room' episode as though it is about as significant as next week's BB evictions, rather than as a defining episode in European history.

Contrary to what the other reviewer here states, this was not meant to be a sweeping vision of history. It was clearly meant as a chamber piece - a chick flick of dark proportions.

While this production does not begin to embrace the scope of Anne's criminal nature, or the greater national ramifications that became of her union with Henry VIII, it doesn't aim to. What it does do, however, is paint a poignant portrait of what it was to be a woman in the 16th century, and how ruthless those days in court were.

I'm a fan of the novel this is based on and am hugely thrilled by this adaptation. It is bold and striking and the lead performance by Jodhi May is one of the most compelling I have ever seen anywhere. It should certainly act as her calling card to producers everywhere that she is more than ready to make the transition from ingenue to adult role. By this performance, I'd say she made the leap long ago.

Jared Harris turns in a dead on performance as the Tudor king who became a tyrant and not the least bit because of his union with Anne Boleyn. The rest in the cast paled in comparison to these two, but that does not mean they turned in poor performances. To the contrary, this was a top notch production I wish greater American audiences could see.

The only glitch for me was toward the end when there is video footage of modern day England, tourists at the Tower of London. I don't get it. But I can forgive one small moment in light of the greater ambition and success of this project.

Period drama should always be so delicious!