Requiem for a Dying Art
Considering that the previews weren't that promising, and that it was a big, dramatic period piece released in February/early March, I suppose that I should have felt forewarned, but The Other Boleyn Girl left me with a feeling of uneasiness long after the credits ended. I suspect that no singular reason could be pinpointed for this. Overall, the movie was incredibly disappointing.
The costumes were beautiful, but distracting, at times. They were more prominent than the sets or the dialogue and acting. Also distracting were the transitions. They showed odd angles of castles with the sky in the background. The clouds passed by quickly to show the passage of time. This was unnecessary on so many levels. It also jerked me out of the movie.
The acting was alright as a whole. It was a little overly dramatic, but that wasn't problematic. Eric Bana, however, was so beige. The role was poorly written, and made King Henry VII seem like some kind of whiny, ineffectual, and impotent king whose subjects openly expressed their knowledge that he could be easily manipulated. This kind of portrayal is historically inaccurate, and made Henry seem like a victim of his times, rather than the main actor of one of the most extreme step towards Protestantism other than Martin Luther's nailing the Ninety-Five Theses to the door in Wittenberg. Bana did nothing to make himself seem like a powerful king, but rather acted more like a brooding Hamlet struggling beneath something more powerful, which the audience was supposed to assume was Anne's supernatural sex vibes. Once again, ignoring the historical inaccuracy, Natalie Portman was not convincingly conniving enough to push the audience towards this conclusion, so it had to be directly stated. Exposition is always such a treat. As an audience member, I love to be bashed over the head with themes. Scarlett Johansson was probably the best of the three, but the sister relationship between her and Portman was not only unrealistic and forced, but it didn't make any sense in regards to the characterization. Their reconciliation at the end of the film does not follow the action and seems overly abrupt.
The historical inaccuracies were astounding and inexplicable. I understand that the film was based on the novel, which was an historical fiction. The changes in history were puzzling, though. For instance, the reversed the ages of the sisters. They also altered Anne's entire childhood, most of which she spent abroad. She didn't return from the court at Calais until after her family's reception at Henry's Court. Additionally, her family was not as destitute as the movie portrayed. Her father had been a favorite of Henry VII, because of this fluency in other languages. Most annoyingly, the file stripped this history of nearly all of its socio-political complexities, instead pulling a National Inquirer, and focusing solely on the salacious details, and definitely extending them to an extent for which history absolutely has no basis. Anne Boleyn believed in the philosophical aspects of the Protestant Reformation, and was familiar with contemporary luminaries. Te movie ignored this fact, and trivialized her image as an English martyr that existed from the time of her death, extending well beyond Elizabethan times.
Truth is elusive, and perhaps a fallacy, yet film goers across America will see this and take it as gospel. This fact attests to the criminal lack of history being taught in school. I'm not trying to get all Platonic on you, but I was troubled by the fact that during the film's epilogue when the audience was blatantly informed that Anne Boleyn was Elizabeth I's mother, a fellow audience member expressed extreme surprise at this connection. I guess my rambling point put succinctly is people need to stop fictionalizing history and then dressing it up as fact, because that leads to misinformed masses.
The costumes were beautiful, but distracting, at times. They were more prominent than the sets or the dialogue and acting. Also distracting were the transitions. They showed odd angles of castles with the sky in the background. The clouds passed by quickly to show the passage of time. This was unnecessary on so many levels. It also jerked me out of the movie.
The acting was alright as a whole. It was a little overly dramatic, but that wasn't problematic. Eric Bana, however, was so beige. The role was poorly written, and made King Henry VII seem like some kind of whiny, ineffectual, and impotent king whose subjects openly expressed their knowledge that he could be easily manipulated. This kind of portrayal is historically inaccurate, and made Henry seem like a victim of his times, rather than the main actor of one of the most extreme step towards Protestantism other than Martin Luther's nailing the Ninety-Five Theses to the door in Wittenberg. Bana did nothing to make himself seem like a powerful king, but rather acted more like a brooding Hamlet struggling beneath something more powerful, which the audience was supposed to assume was Anne's supernatural sex vibes. Once again, ignoring the historical inaccuracy, Natalie Portman was not convincingly conniving enough to push the audience towards this conclusion, so it had to be directly stated. Exposition is always such a treat. As an audience member, I love to be bashed over the head with themes. Scarlett Johansson was probably the best of the three, but the sister relationship between her and Portman was not only unrealistic and forced, but it didn't make any sense in regards to the characterization. Their reconciliation at the end of the film does not follow the action and seems overly abrupt.
The historical inaccuracies were astounding and inexplicable. I understand that the film was based on the novel, which was an historical fiction. The changes in history were puzzling, though. For instance, the reversed the ages of the sisters. They also altered Anne's entire childhood, most of which she spent abroad. She didn't return from the court at Calais until after her family's reception at Henry's Court. Additionally, her family was not as destitute as the movie portrayed. Her father had been a favorite of Henry VII, because of this fluency in other languages. Most annoyingly, the file stripped this history of nearly all of its socio-political complexities, instead pulling a National Inquirer, and focusing solely on the salacious details, and definitely extending them to an extent for which history absolutely has no basis. Anne Boleyn believed in the philosophical aspects of the Protestant Reformation, and was familiar with contemporary luminaries. Te movie ignored this fact, and trivialized her image as an English martyr that existed from the time of her death, extending well beyond Elizabethan times.
Truth is elusive, and perhaps a fallacy, yet film goers across America will see this and take it as gospel. This fact attests to the criminal lack of history being taught in school. I'm not trying to get all Platonic on you, but I was troubled by the fact that during the film's epilogue when the audience was blatantly informed that Anne Boleyn was Elizabeth I's mother, a fellow audience member expressed extreme surprise at this connection. I guess my rambling point put succinctly is people need to stop fictionalizing history and then dressing it up as fact, because that leads to misinformed masses.