Put it this way, if you saw Anne of the Thousand Days, you probably felt sorry for Anne Boleyn. After seeing this film, while you might feel sorry for her - not so much.
The Other Boleyn Girl is a 2008 film starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johannson, Eric Bana, Kristen Scott-Thomas, Mark Rylance, David Morrissey, and Benedict Cumberbatch who at this writing is #2 on the IMDb Starmeter, so I'd say his fortunes have changed.
The story fills in what we don't actually know about the Boleyns and tells some of their story, though the writers had to leave out a lot of material.
Nevertheless, this is a great drama, beautifully costumed and filmed, with wonderful acting and, let's face it, two of the most stunning women in films today.
Natalie Portman plays Anne Boleyn, who is more or less pimped out by her father (Mark Rylance) hoping that she can give Henry VIII a son and, in so doing, increase the family's fortunes. It doesn't work out.
Instead, the King takes a fancy to the newly married Mary, Anne's sister, and both the young women are given a position at court. Henry, then married to Catherine of Aragon, then takes Mary as a lover. Mary later gives birth to a son.
Anne secretly marries someone who is betrothed to another, and as a punishment is sent to the court in France. When she returns, she captivates King Henry by refusing to become his mistress while he is still married, driving him to distraction.
He eventually gets the law changed so he can divorce Catherine and marry Anne. By now he is long finished with Mary, barely acknowledging his son.
One of the created scenes in the film occurs when Anne miscarries her child, a boy. She is desperate that Henry not find out and appeals to her brother to sleep with her. He can't do it.
In truth, one of the crimes Anne was charged with was incest, but these allegations were made up. Her brother George was executed because of it, however. In the film, someone sees them together and reports it.
I actually think the writers did an okay job with this story - in historical films one always has to combine events and characters or leave them out.
Natalie Portman is excellent as Anne, rather bratty, seductive, and emotional. Johannson has a less showy role but she's marvelous as well.
Eric Bana is an attractive Henry. The real Henry was a redhead, but the depiction of Henry as slender and attractive is certainly correct for the period in which the story takes place.
The film makes a great deal out of the relationship between Anne and Mary -- Anne is furious when Mary nabs the King, then Mary is furious when Anne makes her big move.
In fact, the two sisters weren't particularly close. And though in the film Anne is the older sister, historians today believe that Mary was the older one.
Mary actually had two children, but there isn't a lot of evidence to support that her second child was actually King Henry's. What isn't mentioned in the film itself is that after Mary's husband (Cumberbatch) died, she married a soldier secretly, a man way beneath her station, and was banished from court, never to return.
Her family also disowned her. Up until then, she was at court; when she was widowed, Anne arranged for her to have a pension and had Mary's second child, a boy, educated.
After Mary's and Anne's parents died, Mary inherited some property and she and her husband lived quietly and happily for the rest of their lives.
Very good film, well worth seeing.
