I’m a sucker for anything based in history, so naturally I bought it even before seeing it. The imagery, costumes, language, I adore anything based especially in this time period.

Unfortunately I never read the book, and hadn’t heard much about it until I heard about the movie being on video. I was too impatient to read the book first, so I watched the movie and loved it.

Right away I had to go to Wikipedia and do tons of research for myself on the truths and fictions surrounding the story.

I would still love to read the book one day, but so far the movie will have to suffice. I loved almost everything about it!

I didn’t read the book but I did think the movie was ok. Not the best I’ve seen but I did like the historical background on the Boleyn sisters – had no idea that Ann had a sister who had a relationship and son with the king! In terms of the plot . . . eh, it was just good enough to keep me watching.

I read the book and adored it, so I was looking forward to the movie. I never got the chance to see it in the theater so when I found out it was on Comcast OnDemand I was anxious to put forward the money and watch it. Dear Lord, I wish I hadn’t wasted my money.

Let’s begin with the casting, the one thing I was worried about when I saw the trailers. Anne Boleyn is a well-known female in the history of England, and perhaps the most famous of Henry VIII’s six wives. Gregory’s portrayal showed her as a woman of unending ambition, ruthlessness, and seduction. The casting of Anne in the series the Tudors was quite on the mark and I was expecting to see another actress in the tradition of Natalie Dormer. But no. Instead I recieved another Natalie, much to my despair. Miss Portman and Anne Boleyn are polar opposites of one another and unfortunately I do not believe that she is talented enough (at least right now) to break out of her “I’m the victimized woman” role she seems to be consistantly trapped in. She proved me right in this movie. Instead of being tactful and teasing she was whiny and half-heartedly demanding. She did not play her character well at all and I think this was poor casting on the behalf of the director.

As for the relationship between the sisters, well, they completely botched that as well. The entire story was supposed to be centered around Mary and Anne’s rivalry for the King. However, throughout the movie they were fairly supportive of one another and the only hint of hatred they seemed to have for one another was when Mary told her family of the marriage to Henry Percy, and even then that anger didn’t seem to last long. They cut out many of the events that would share their rivalry, such as Anne’s forced adoption of Mary’s son.

The events of the story were completely butchered. I understand that considering how long the book was there is a need to annotate some of the events but they would pass through time very quickly without any notice. If I hadn’t read the book I would have been very confused and wouldn’t have known what the hell was going on. They (of course) changed the fact the Anne and George produced a deformed child bred of incest. This was one of the most interesting parts of the story to me and also contributed to the development of Anne’s character. Then again they didn’t seem to care much about development. They completely changed the mother’s character, and left George underdeveloped. As a matter of fact almost all the characters, even the main three, were underdeveloped. William Stafford was barely in the movie and seemed to disappear and reappear at random.

At least the movie was pretty, but I’ll never forgive them for turning one of my favorite novels into a Lifetime t.v special.

I don’t know much about the Boleyn sisters from a historical point of view, but I can tell you that this movie was just plain dull. It lacked a good story line. The acting was good, and the movie was very pretty, but it seemed to be only that. There wasn’t a whole lot of depth to the movie. There wasn’t much emphasis on the political aspects of the king’s relationships with the Boleyn girls, and I really think that if there had been more emphasis on it, the movie would have been a lot better.

To kind of sum it all up, though, if you want a pretty movie with pretty girls and no real story, just watch the previews and save yourself the 2+ hours.

Unfortunately I watched the much, much better “Anne of the Thousand Days” about a month before I saw this film, so comparisons were inevitable as it dealt with almost the exact period in history from beginning to end. The relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is one of the most interesting and world-changing in history so I don’t believe they will ever stop making movies about it, but hopefully they won’t make any more like this one. What “The Other Boleyn Girl” does is remove the politics from the story. It is a perfect example of people assuming that history was inevitable and presenting it as such. It practically deletes any mention of what Henry’s divorce meant to England as a world power or to religion. Let no one be mistaken – the politics and effects of their relationship is what makes it so interesting, not the fact that they were very briefly in love. After all, Henry VIII slept with a lot of women. When you take the politics out of the movie, you not only dumb it down, but you leave the audience with simply a love story in pretty clothes. Which I guess could have been made to work – they did manage to get a very talented cast. But for a story which is boiled down to just the passion – it is a passionless piece of work. And the fact that it tried to give any credability at all to the incest charge was the hammer in the coffin. It was, however, very beautifull shot – so 2 stars.

And I thought the book was a bit disappointing compared to the hype! This movie has made my list of “worst movies I’ve ever seen” and wound up improving my opinion of the book.

I should say that the depth and detail of the history of Henry VIII, Catherine and Anne is so great that I don’t believe it can be sufficiently covered in the span of one movie so it was foolish of them to attempt it. It was rushed and seemed edited down to the point of making characters and events shallow and boring.

Not only was it very historically inaccurate but it didn’t even follow the book very well. The historical accuracy doesn’t have to be 100% for me to enjoy it but this movie just lacked any sort of build up to or depth of certain defining moments in history.

Though the movie was full of good actors, their delivery was let down by the nature of the movie being rushed and shallow. If you want to watch a Tudor story that lives up to it’s potential, watch Showtime’s “The Tudors” instead.

SPOILER:

I was speechless – and not in a good way – during the scene where Henry just flat out rapes Anne. I’m still speechless as I write this, I can’t even begin to describe how absurd it is. Henry was an arrogant, selfish womanizer but he was NOT a rapist. Whoever wrote that scene is a disgrace.