Back to 'Boleyn'

Revisiting the madness of Henry VIII

King Henry VIII: [to Anne] And what would you know of great men?
Anne Boleyn: I'd know one, if he were before me.
King Henry VIII: Do you see one here?
Anne Boleyn: [walks about the hall, surveying the men] Looking, my lord.
Anne Boleyn: [stops in front of the King and smiles] Ah, found one.

It is doubtful whether King Henry VIII or any of his wives ought to be considered "great," but for all their messy misadventures, Henry did produce red-haired Elizabeth, possibly England's greatest monarch.

Katherine of Aragon: [to Anne and Mary] I am Katherine, Queen of England, the King's one true wife and mother of the heir to the throne. Beloved of the people, and beloved of a King you have bewitched.

Ironically, when Katherine -- Henry VIII's first wife -- died, Henry and Anne Boleyn dressed in bright yellow and called on the nation to celebrate. "The Other Boleyn Girl" (2008) does reflect the angst that King Henry's wives must have endured immediately after giving birth, and the children in each case having turned out not to be boys.

The stress to give birth to sons was a burden to all of Henry's wives (failure meant the threat of being put to death), leading to the high rate of miscarriages. It is this more than anything else that makes "The Other Boleyn Girl" worth watching.

I confess, I went to watch this movie because Natalie Portman is one of America's prettiest stars, and so is Scarlett Johansson, and who wouldn't want to be in Eric Bana's position (as Henry VIII), with this pair, the lissome blonde and sultry brunette fighting for your affections? But that is exactly the problem with this flick. The characters seem to have invaded history, and Portman's Anne Boleyn -- possibly because we like Portman so much (and so did director Justin Chadwick) -- breaks away from history in this flick before departing entirely from it.

For example Anne is accused of incest with her brother (and thus sentenced to death), but there were actually five claims of adultery (probably all fictitious) against her, some turning up a matter of days one after another, and then also the claim of incest.

Anne Boleyn: What will the King say when he finds out that I cannot bear children?

It is less easy in the face of history to be sympathetic to Anne Boleyn when we remember that she became incredibly greedy as the new queen, spending extravagantly on jewels, ostrich-feather fans and palace decorations. Anne renovated entire palaces, and complimented her husband's tyrannical style, which did not endear her to the laity. In 1535 she was crucial in having her enemies (including Sir Thomas More) executed.

Naturally the film depicts none of this, and we come away to some extent pitying, admiring and loving Portman's Anne Boleyn. If there is an admirable character in this flick (and I'm not convinced there is), it might be Johansson as the loyal and sincere Mary Boleyn. The initial scenes between her and the king I found tender and touching, but no more resembling of history.

Lest we forget, King Henry's wife swapping started with a Papal Dispensation allowing him to marry his dead brother's wife (the Queen of Spain),and two days after both were crowned at Westminster Abbey, Henry VIII accused two unpopular ministers of treason and had them beheaded. At this stage Henry was just 17 years old, but it became a regular refrain during the remainder of his reign. Thus, he began his predatory ambitions as a result of his obsession to sire a male heir. In fact his first 'victim' Elizabeth Blount (a mistress), gave birth to a son, Henry Fitzroy, and some attempts were made to change the law to allow an illegitimate son to become king.

The movie also fails to mention that the king married and put to death an 18-year-old Mary Howard, Anne Boleyn's first cousin. While many of his marriages were null and void technically, and Henry committed adultery on numerous occasions, suspected transgressions made by his wives (who were in many cases betrothed to other men before Henry married them) were punished by beheadings.

In all Henry had six wives, two of whom were executed, and numerous mistresses. He died, some say of syphilis, at the age of 55, very obese (with a waist measuring 137 cm) and requiring at the end of his life, machinery to move him around.

Lady Elizabeth: Our daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men.

For my part I emerged from the cinema thoroughly disgusted; not only by Bana as the gutless King Henry, but by the power hungry, gold digging wenches who found themselves ambitiously "making the most" of their situations, before being doomed by these selfsame ambitions.

And I found the hypocrisy sickening. The director does his audience a disservice by straying to the extent that he does from the basic but fascinating history that he used as his muse.